A letter dictated by Mahmoud Khalil over the phone from ICE detention in Louisiana.<\/p>\n
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in\u00a0<\/span>Louisiana where I\u00a0wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices\u00a0<\/span>underway against a\u00a0great many people precluded from the protections of the\u00a0law.<\/span><\/p>\n Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn\u2019t the\u00a0<\/span>Senegalese man I\u00a0met who has been deprived of his liberty for a\u00a0year, his legal situation in limbo and his\u00a0<\/span>family an ocean away. It isn\u2019t the\u00a021<\/span>-year-old detainee I\u00a0met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine,\u00a0<\/span>only to be deported without so much as a\u00a0hearing.<\/span><\/p>\n Justice escapes the contours of this nation\u2019s immigration\u00a0facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n On March\u00a08<\/span>, I\u00a0was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a\u00a0warrant, and accosted my wife and me\u00a0<\/span>as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I\u00a0knew what\u00a0<\/span>was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern\u00a0<\/span>was for Noor\u2019s safety. I\u00a0had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her\u00a0<\/span>for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours\u2009\u2014\u2009I did not know the cause of my\u00a0<\/span>arrest or if I\u00a0was facing immediate deportation. At\u00a026<\/span>\u00a0Federal Plaza, I\u00a0slept on the cold floor. In the early\u00a0<\/span>morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I\u00a0slept on the\u00a0<\/span>ground and was refused a\u00a0blanket despite my\u00a0request.<\/span><\/p>\n My arrest was a\u00a0direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I\u00a0advocated for a\u00a0free\u00a0<\/span>Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced\u00a0<\/span>to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle\u00a0<\/span>for their complete\u00a0freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n I was born in a\u00a0Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a\u00a0family which has been displaced from their land\u00a0<\/span>since the\u00a01948<\/span>\u00a0Nakba. I\u00a0spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being\u00a0<\/span>Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I\u00a0see in my circumstances similarities to Israel\u2019s use\u00a0<\/span>of administrative detention\u2009\u2014\u2009imprisonment without trial or charge\u2009\u2014\u2009to strip Palestinians of their rights.\u00a0<\/span>I\u00a0think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned\u00a0<\/span>home from travel. I\u00a0think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was\u00a0<\/span>taken captive by the Israeli military on December\u00a027<\/span>\u00a0and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For\u00a0<\/span>Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is\u00a0commonplace.<\/span><\/p>\n I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate\u00a0<\/span>my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism\u00a0<\/span>that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past\u00a016<\/span>\u00a0months as the U.S. has\u00a0<\/span>continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For\u00a0<\/span>decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to\u00a0<\/span>violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I\u00a0am being\u00a0<\/span>targeted.<\/span><\/p>\n While I\u00a0await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled\u00a0<\/span>my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean\u00a0<\/span>Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining\u00a0<\/span>pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing\u2009\u2014\u2009based on racism and disinformation\u2014<\/span>to go\u00a0unchecked.<\/span><\/p>\n Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a\u00a0new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due\u00a0<\/span>process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing\u00a0<\/span>student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration\u2019s latest threats. My arrest, the\u00a0<\/span>expulsion or suspension of at least\u00a022<\/span>\u00a0Columbia students\u2009\u2014\u2009some stripped of their B.A. degrees just\u00a0<\/span>weeks before graduation\u2009\u2014\u2009and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract\u00a0<\/span>negotiations, are clear\u00a0examples.<\/span><\/p>\n If anything, my detention is a\u00a0testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion\u00a0<\/span>toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change\u2009\u2014\u2009leading the charge\u00a0<\/span>against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement, and driving the struggle\u00a0<\/span>against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who\u00a0<\/span>steer us toward truth and\u00a0justice.<\/span><\/p>\n The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a\u00a0broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders,\u00a0<\/span>green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead,\u00a0<\/span>students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake\u00a0<\/span>are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of\u00a0all.<\/span><\/p>\n Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I\u00a0hope nonetheless to be free to\u00a0<\/span>witness the birth of my first-born\u00a0child.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A letter dictated by Mahmoud Khalil over the phone from ICE detention in Louisiana. My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in\u00a0Louisiana where I\u00a0wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices\u00a0underway against a\u00a0great many people precluded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21199,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21198\/revisions\/21199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}