Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil has said the Trump administration failed to suppress pro-Palestinian voices, following his release from more than three months in immigration detention. “My existence is a message” to the Trump administration, he told the BBC after returning to New Jersey from a detention centre in Louisiana. “All these attempts to suppress...
Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today! Leaving an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana, after being imprisoned for 104 days for protesting Israel’s U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza, former Columbia University organizer Mahmoud Khalil said Friday evening that he will continue fighting against the Trump administration’s targeting of...
A federal judge ordered Columbia University student and activist Mahmoud Khalil to be released on bail after he has spent over three months in detention, US media reports. Mr Khalil became a symbol of the the Trump administration’s high-profile crackdown on universities and foreign students when US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him in New...
“ICE has admitted it detained Mahmoud illegally … to justify it, they are now flat out lying,” said a legal advocate. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents did not have a warrant when they arrested Palestinian activist and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil on March 8, according to court papers filed by the Department of Homeland...
“I lie sleepless … in Jena, Louisiana, far from my wife, Noor, who will give birth to our baby in two weeks,” he wrote. In a letter from an immigrant detention center in Louisiana, pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil has pleaded for his case to spur the public into action against the rapid erosion of civil...
While many are gathering this weekend to hold seders on the first nights of Passover, a number of Jewish organizations are inviting us back into the streets to take the message of liberation further. On Monday, April 14, the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) will lead over a thousand Jews in a Passover...
Welp, it looks, amazingly enough, like our long national nightmare is close to over. No, Maxine Waters didn’t retire. An actual judge in an actual courtroom actually ruled in favor of the Trump administration and said they were free to boot Hamas-loving Columbia University ‘student’ Mahmoud Khalil. He can be deported. The government had satisfactorily...
He urges readers to “reclaim the university and join the student movement to carry forward the work of the past year.” In an op-ed dictated to his attorney from a detention facility in Louisiana, Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil late last week condemned the Ivy League institution’s complicity in the Trump administration’s targeting of Palestinian...
The new documentary The Encampments, produced by Watermelon Pictures and BreakThrough News, is an insider’s look at the student protest movement to demand divestment from the U.S. and Israeli weapons industry and an end to the genocide in Gaza. The film focuses on last year’s student encampment at Columbia University and features student leaders including...
Editor’s note: Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil has issued his first public statement since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) snatched him from his home on March 8, 2025. The statement was dictated to Khalil’s friends and family from the ICE jail in Jena, Louisiana, where he is being held, and it was...
Part of the Series Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation When news broke that Mahmoud Khalil — a recently graduated Palestinian student activist at Columbia University — was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a firestorm of media coverage, social media posts and protests followed. Groups focused on issues ranging from Palestine solidarity...
Yesterday, 98 protesters were arrested in New York City after overtaking the Trump Tower lobby in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and U.S. permanent resident facing deportation for his involvement in Palestine solidarity protests at Columbia University. The demonstration was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, which stated on social media, “We know...