Press release: Response to Mahmoud Khalil verdict
Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner in Trump’s America. The rest of us must stand up to rampant anti-Palestinian and Arab racism, and demand an end to the USA funding war crimes in Palestine, says the Stop Trump Coalition.
A United States immigration judge has ruled that Columbia University graduate student and Palestine protest organiser Mahmoud Khalil can be deported from the USA.
Khalil, a Syrian-Palestinian refugee, holds Algerian citizenship, and became a permanent US resident in 2024, issued with a green card.
Background:
Khalil’s case was the first in a number of arrests carried out by US immigration officers of students and academics of colour involved in advocating against Israel’s military onslaught of Gaza, instigated by the Trump administration, targeting students and scholars standing up for Palestinian human-rights and and end to the genocide.
All the individuals arrested and imprisoned have been living in the US on visas or green cards. They are: Badar Khan Suri, Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil.
Khalil was snatched by masked and unidentified US immigration officers, from New York on March 8th as he returned from an Iftar gathering with his heavily pregnant American wife, Noor Abdalla.
Khalil was transferred to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, where he has been incarcerated for over a month.
Khalil has described himself as a “political prisoner” and intends to appeal further.
Stop Trump response:
“The targeting of Mahmoud Khalil and the green-lighting of his deportation from the USA – for calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza and US support and funding of a military campaign that have killed at least 50,000 Palestinians in 17 months, and turned Gaza into a wasteland – must be denounced and protested by every person across the world who believes in the rights of Palestinians to life, and free speech,” said Stop Trump.
“The Trump administration is dangerously, purposefully and cynically conflating legitimate criticism of the US government’s support of Israel’s military occupation of Palestine and its ongoing genocide in Gaza, with antisemitism. This does nothing to tackle anti-Jewish racism and instead fuels further anti-Palestinan and Arab racism and risks further racist harm to people and communities.”
The Trump administration has not charged Khalil with any crime or presented any evidence he has committed any crime.
In a letter submitted to the court and Khalil’s lawyers, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Khalil should be removed from the USA for his role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States”.
Khalil has not been accused of breaking any laws. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has even said that his government department can revoke an immigrant’s legal status even where their beliefs, associations or statements are “otherwise lawful”.
Freedom of Speech is protected under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, including the right to criticize American foreign policy.
Stop Trump stands in solitary with all people demanding an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and calls for the immediate creation of a free Palestine. There must be accountability for all war crimes carried out against Palestinian civilians and the destruction of Gaza’s critical infrastructure.
The British government must speak out against Khalil’s deportation, and stop its own complicity in selling arms to Israel and providing diplomatic cover to Israel.