UNITED STATES
Mahmoud Khalil will “continue to talk about Palestine”
One day after his release, Mahmoud Khalil said on Saturday that he intends to continue talking about Palestine.
Mahmoud Khalil speaks in front of the press at Newark airport with Keffieh and flowers in hand, June 21, 2025.
AFP
“Even if they kill me, I will continue to talk about Palestine,” said Propalestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil on Saturday, welcomed under the Vivats and the Youyous of his relatives in the New York region, after 104 days in a detention center for immigrants in Louisiana.
Mahmoud Khalil has become in recent months the focal point of tensions between the Trump administration and the Propalestinian movements on American campuses and civil society, which are opposed, among other things, to American support for the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
He was arrested on March 8 in a university residence in Columbia, New York, then transferred to a detention center for the Federal Immigration Police (ICE) in Louisiana, without being able to attend the birth of his son, before being released on Friday on the instruction of a court.
“All these attempts to remove pro-Palestine voices have failed”
“The mere fact that I am here is a message testifying to the fact that all these attempts to suppress pro-Palestine voices have failed,” said Mahmoud Khalil, when he left the terminal of Newark Airport, in the suburbs of New York, alongside his wife Noor Abdalla by pushing a praise and welcomed by dozens of extreme supporters including the young star Democratic party Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“Mahmoud Khalil was unjustly imprisoned 104 days by the Trump administration for political reasons because he defends the rights of the Palestinians,” said the elected official of New York, accusing the tenant of the White House of wanting to “intimidate”, by this emblematic case, the American student movement. “This is not over, you have to continue to defend it,” she added.
If he has been released, Mahmoud Khalil still faces a procedure for expulsion from the United States, the American government trying to revoke the green card of residence of this man born in Syria of Palestinian parents and recently graduated from the prestigious Columbia University of New York.
Possible threats in a hyper polarized society
In March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified Mahmoud Khalil’s detention by evoking a legal provision according to which he could be expelled because his presence bears “potentially serious consequences for American foreign policy”.
According to Elora Mukherjee, law professor at Columbia University, this legal provision had “never” been used before, according to his research, on the holder of a residence permit.
In addition to the question of his status, Mahmoud Khalil could face threats in a hyper polarized society. On Friday, during a telephone hearing relating to the conditions of his release, a man broke down to accuse the justice of liberating an “Islamo-fachist”.
“We are concerned about its safety”
“We are concerned about its safety. The irony is that he is the one who is persecuted, who is accused of violence, while he defends peace. And so to reject the policy of the United States government, he is threatened, “one of his lawyers Baher Azmy told AFP, without spiling on security measures to protect him and his family.
Barely out of the detention center in Louisiana, Mahmoud Khalil must spend time with his family and resume the street for a demonstration on Sunday at the foot of Columbia University: “All I want is to continue to do what I did, namely to defend the rights of the Palestinians, which should be encouraged and not punished.”
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