The spouse of detained Columbia College graduate scholar Mahmoud Khalil introduced the delivery of the couple’s son on Monday, noting her husband was not capable of witness the occasion.
Dr. Noor Abdalla, a Michigan-born dentist who was with Khalil when he was arrested by federal brokers March 8, mentioned she requested his presence on the delivery however was denied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Despite our request for ICE to allow Mahmoud to attend the birth, they denied his temporary release to meet our son,” Abdalla mentioned in a press release Monday afternoon. “This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer.”
Mahmoud Khalil at a pro-Palestinian protest on the Columbia College campus in New York on April 29, 2024. ( Ted Shaffrey / AP file)
A spokesperson for the couple didn’t instantly reply to questions concerning the child’s identify. ICE didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Khalil, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and was granted everlasting U.S. resident standing final yr, turned a figurehead amid pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia in 2024, throughout which he served as a mediator between scholar teams collaborating in a campus encampment and directors on the New York Metropolis faculty.
His arrest by U.S. brokers, together with one from Homeland Safety Investigations, occurred at Khalil’s residence at a scholar housing advanced on campus. He was detained as he returned from Iftar, a meal that breaks the standard Islamic quick throughout the holy month of Ramadan, Abdalla has mentioned.
“Despite seeing the green card, they insisted that they would be bringing him in anyway,” Abdalla mentioned in a court docket submitting difficult Khalil’s arrest and no-bail standing.
The authorized rationale for Khalil’s detention did not turn out to be solely clear till three days later, when the U.S. Division of State mentioned in a press release that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has the discretion, beneath a hardly ever used federal legislation, to take away any noncitizen deemed to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
An immigration decide in Louisiana earlier this month dominated that Rubio has the discretion to deport Khalil and that efforts to take action might transfer ahead. Khalil’s attorneys are difficult that ruling, which has a Wednesday deadline earlier than it goes into impact, and have individually filed an enchantment of his arrest in federal felony court docket in New Jersey.
“Mahmoud remains unjustly detained in an ICE detention center over 1,000 miles away from his firstborn child,” Abdalla mentioned Monday. “My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”
His attorneys argue Khalil was arrested over his protected free speech and his position in final yr’s pro-Palestinian scholar protest motion.
Rubio mentioned final month that the State Division has revoked the coed visas of campus protesters he characterised as “lunatics.”
Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem accused Khalil of constructing Jewish college students fearful whereas supporting terrorists. She mentioned after his arrest that Khalil “hates the United States and what we stand for.”
Khalil’s attorneys offered proof that he has welcomed the assistance of Jewish protesters throughout final yr’s occasions, and so they’ve denied he ever offered assist to Hamas or another terrorist group.
“I will continue to fight every day for Mahmoud to come home to us,” Abdalla mentioned Monday. “I know when Mahmoud is freed, he will show our son how to be brave, thoughtful, and compassionate, just like his dad.”
Almost 100 protesters have been arrested Thursday following a sit-in at Trump Tower in Manhattan to demand the discharge of Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil.
