More than a dozen progressive lawmakers have signed on to a letter demanding the Trump administration release Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil from detention, after he was unlawfully taken by agents for helping lead anti-war student protests on Columbia University’s campus last year.
The administration has been facing growing backlash over Khalil’s arrest, which happened Saturday night as he and his wife were coming back to their university-owned apartment. Plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took him without a judicial warrant, threatening to revoke his green card that makes him a permanent legal resident.
Khalil’s wife, who earlier made a public plea for her husband’s release, is a U.S. citizen and eight months pregnant with their first child. At the time of his arrest, ICE agents also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife if she did not leave him and go up to their apartment. Agents would not give her nor their attorney enough information on the officers’ identities and Khalil’s whereabouts.
“He is a political prisoner, wrongfully and unlawfully detained, who deserves to be at home in New York preparing for the birth of his first child,” said the lettersent to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Noem did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Khalil has still not faced any charges, making the threat of green card revocation that much more extreme. A judge has temporarily ruled that ICE cannot deport him until a petition filed by his attorney is reviewed. As of now, agents are holding him at an ICE detention center in Louisiana, thousands of miles away from his home in New York. His attorney, Amy Greer, is working to get Khalil transferred back to his home state.
“As the Trump administration proudly admits, he was targeted solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader and negotiator for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia University campus, protesting the Israeli government’s brutal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza and his university’s complicity in this oppression,” the letter read. “This illegal political justification has been stated clearly by figures throughout the administration, including the president himself.”
The letter’s signatories include Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Jasmine Crockett (Texas), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Lateefah Simon (Calif.), Gwen Moore (Wis.), Nikema Williams (Ga.), Al Green (Texas), André Carson (Ind.) and Jim McGovern (Mass.).
Some lawmakers who didn’t sign the letter, like Democratic Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Chuy Garcia (Ill.), have still spokenout in favor of releasingKhalil. Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted more careful statements, attempting to hold the Trump administration accountable while still echoing the White House’s toxic rhetoric that falsely implies Khalil was a graduate student who led dangerous, antisemitic protests on campus.
“I abhor many of the opinions and policies that Mahmoud Khalil holds and supports, and have made my criticism of the antisemitic actions at Columbia loudly known,” Schumer posted, adding that it should be up to Columbia to determine how to punish Khalilfor nonviolently protesting against the Israeli occupation. The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee also posted a photo of Khalilcalling for his freedom.
“Khalil’s arrest is an act of anti-Palestinian racism intended to silence the Palestine solidarity movement in this country, but this lawless abuse of power and political repression is a threat to all Americans,” the letter by progressives said, adding that his detention is part of a greater effort to criminalize protest and quash freedom of speech.
Tuesday erupted in protest as students and staff walked out of severalcolleges and universities across the country, including Columbia itself. One day earlier, New York City held a march for Khalil, while Columbia faculty and other community leaders spoke on campus of the danger that comes with policing higher education and free speech.
Many of the campus protests were led by or organized with Jewish students who oppose Israel’s military campaign against Palestinians ― warning that punishing dissent under the guise of antisemitism, as Trump has claimed to do, will further endanger everyone, including Jewish Americans. On Tuesday, Jewish students at Columbia rallied with signsthat support Khalil’s freedom and denounce the university’s compliance with ICE.
“We must unite and stand with our community. When they come for Mahmoud, they come for all of us,” the Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition posted. “We remain committed to divestment and a liberated Palestine, no matter what. We’re not going anywhere.”
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Matt Shuham contributed to this report.