US: Calls for Release of Palestinian Activist Gain Momentum

As recent Columbia graduate and leading activist in the Palestine solidarity movement Mahmoud Khalil remains in detention in a Louisiana immigration facility, forces across the country are uniting to fight for his release.

Last year, Khalil was a negotiator between student organizers participating in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and Columbia University, fighting for their institution’s divestment from institutions that support the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people. Many view Khalil’s arrest by immigration authorities on March 9 as a major crackdown by the Trump administration on free speech and one of the largest grassroots movements in recent US history: the movement in solidarity with Palestine. 

Khalil was arrested by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8, briefly held at an ICE facility in Manhattan and then was transferred to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana, where he remains detained more than 1,000 miles from his home in New York City. On Monday, March 10, a federal judge in New York City ordered that Khalil not be deported while the court considered a challenge brought by his lawyers. 

An update from Khalil’s attorney Amy Greer indicated that “Mahmoud’s legal team, which includes Kyle Barron, CLEAR, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Amy Greer, filed a motion to compel in federal court in the Southern District of New York, as part of the habeas corpus petition filed on his behalf over the weekend, seeking an order requiring the government to return to New York for any immigration proceedings.”

ICE detention centers have become notorious for their abuses and brutality, and the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in which Khalil is being held has a particularly heinous reputation. The facility is operated by the for-profit corporation the GEO Group. In 2016, three immigrants died at the facility in the span of six months, with an additional fourth detained immigrant dying the following year. One of those who died while in custody at the facility, Roger Rayson, had been diagnosed with cancer, but ICE had decided to end his chemotherapy sessions. In 2017, data revealed that the center was one of five ICE facilities with the most complaints of sexual assault. 

According to the update from Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, the activist is “healthy and his spirits are undaunted by his predicament,” while in custody in Louisiana. 

Movement grows in support of Mahmoud Khalil

Academics, activists, organizers, and artists have signed a letter calling for an end to Trump’s attacks on immigrants and student activists. These include scholars Judith Butler, Robin D.G. Kelley, Gerald Horne, Charisse Burden-Stelly, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, as well as artists including actor Susan Sarandon, Alana Hadid, creative director of Watermelon Pictures, Palestinian-American painter Samia Halaby, and singer Lauren Jauregui. Labor leaders also signed onto the letter, including Brandon Mancilla, Director of United Auto Workers Region 9A, and Carl Rosen, General President of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers. 

“We, the signers below, condemn the vicious attacks against free speech and the targeting of immigrant students, particularly student activists and protestors,” reads the letter, published by the Peoples Forum, a part of the national Shut it Down for Palestine Coalition, a grouping of pro-Palestine organizations that held key demonstrations against Israeli genocide in the recent years. “Throughout history, the repression of student movements has always been the harbinger of a broader assault against basic democratic and civil rights for the rest of the nation. Now is the time that we must stand together to protect our students, our right to education, and our constitutional right to Free Speech.”

The Shut it Down for Palestine coalition organized a rally and march in downtown Manhattan, attended by thousands, calling for Khalil’s release. The demonstration was endorsed by several organizations which have been central to the movement for Palestine, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Writers Against the War on Gaza, Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City, the ANSWER Coalition, the Democratic Socialists of America-New York City, and the Palestinian Feminist Collective. 

Similar demonstrations were held throughout the country, including in Washington, DC.

The Shut it Down for Palestine coalition has called for a rally outside of the court conference on Khalil’s case in New York City. In the next few days, rallies will be held demanding Khalil’s release throughout the country, including in Atlanta on March 11. 

“The first arrest of many to come”

US President Trump and his administration has indicated that Khalil’s arrest is only the first of many similar crackdowns on the student movement. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump wrote in a March 10 post on Truth Social. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country—never to return again.”

The White House had written in a post on X marking Khalil’s arrest: “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.”

Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-zionist Jewish organization which organizes Jewish people in support of Palestine, referenced the history of the persecution of Jewish people as a reason to stand against Trump’s attacks on the student movement. “As Jews of conscience, we know our history and we know where this leads. It’s on all of us to stand up now. Many of us are the descendants of people who resisted European fascism and far too many of our ancestors lost their lives in that struggle,” JVP wrote in a statement. “This is how fascism works and the only defense is to refuse to be divided or silenced. History has shown us that we cannot stand idly by—and we will not.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio commented on Khalil’s arrest on March 9, claiming that “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”