A Columbia graduate facing deportation over his pro-Palestinian activism on campus has outlined the “irreparable harm” caused by his continued detention as a federal judge weighs his release.
Mahmoud Khalil said in court filings unsealed Thursday that the “most immediate and visceral harms” he’s faced in his months detained in Louisiana relate to missing out on the birth of his first child in April.
“Instead of holding my wife’s hand in the delivery room, I was crouched on a detention center floor, whispering through a crackling phone line as she labored alone,” the 30-year-old legal U.S. resident wrote. “When I heard my son’s first cries, I buried my face in my arms so no one would see me weep.”
He also cited potentially “career-ending” harms from the ordeal, noting that Oxfam International has already rescinded a job offer to serve as a policy advisor.
Even his mother’s visa to come to the U.S. to help care for his infant son is also now under federal review, Khalil said.
“As someone who fled prosecution in Syria for my political beliefs, for who I am, I never imagined myself to be in immigration detention, here in the United States,” he wrote. “Why should protesting this Israel government’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians result in the erosion of my constitutional rights?”
Spokespersons for the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Khalil’s 13-page statement was among a number of legal declarations his lawyers filed highlighting the wide-ranging negative impacts of his arrest.
Dr. Noor Abdalla, his U.S. citizen wife, described the challenges of not having her husband to help navigate their son’s birth and the first weeks of his young life.
Students and professors at Columbia wrote about the chilling effect Khalil’s arrest has had on campus life, with people afraid to attend protests or participate in groups that can be viewed as critical of the Trump administration.
Last week, a federal judge in New Jersey said the Trump administration’s effort to deport Khalil likely violates the Constitution.
Judge Michael Farbiarz wrote the government’s primary justification for removing Khalil — that his beliefs may pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy — could open the door to vague and arbitrary enforcement.
Khalil was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under Trump’s widening crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
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