Pro-Palestinian protest leader released from US custody

NEW YORK: Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide pro-Palestinian campus protests, was released Friday from a federal detention center.

Khalil, a legal permanent resident in the United States who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation.

“This shouldn’t have taken three months,” Khalil, wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, told US media outside an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana hours after a federal judge ordered his release.

“(President Donald) Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this,” he said. “There’s no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide.”

The Department of Homeland Security criticized District Judge Michael Farbiarz’s ruling Friday as an example of how “out of control members of the judicial branch are undermining our national security.”

Under the terms of his release, Khalil will not be allowed to leave the United States except for “self-deportation,” and faces restrictions on where he can travel within the country.

Khalil’s wife, Michigan-born dentist Noor Abdalla, said her family could now “finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home.”

“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” added Abdalla, who gave birth to the couple’s first child while her husband was in detention.

Visas revoked

Since his March 8 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism.

At the time a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Khalil was a prominent leader of nationwide campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Following his arrest, US authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from his home in New York to the detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy.

Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review.

Hundreds of students have seen their visas revoked, with some saying they were targeted for everything from writing opinion articles to minor arrest records.

Farbiarz ruled last week that the government could not detain or deport Khalil based on Rubio’s assertions that his presence on US soil poses a national security threat.

The government has also alleged as grounds to detain and deport Khalil that there were inaccuracies in his application for permanent residency.

Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which is among the groups representing Khalil, welcomed the release order.

“This is an important step in vindicating Mr Khalil’s rights as he continues to be unlawfully targeted by the federal government for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights,” Sinha said.