Democracy depends on a free press…Pleasee support our independent journalism atdemocracynow.org. Thisis iDemocracycNow,,odemocracynow.org,,org, the WarPeaceeReport. . rt. I’m Amy Goodman in York,,York, joinedemocracy. . acy. Now Juan Gonzalez in ChiHigJuan,, Juan, hi Amy and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and arounworld.d.wA federallderal judge has blocked the deportation of MaKhal,, Khal, the recent Columbia University graduatwasasho was arred Ed over the weekend by immigration agents for helporganiz..nize.
campus solidarity protests with Gaza year.r.yKhillKhil is a permanent leresident;;dent; he has a gcard.d.cHiss His wife is a US citizen who’s 8 monpregnant..nKhilKhil was arrested Saturday atuniversity-owneddwapartment.t.eHe. He’s now being held in a federal jail for immigrantsLouisiana. . Presidenttent Trump boasted Khalillilarrest,t,st, posting on socimedia,,dquote,,oThissis is the first arrest of many tcome,,munquote.e.tOn Monday,,day, faculty at Columbia University and Barnard College held an emergency press conference where they were joined rabbibbi
rabbi and immigrant rights Advocates this is Naja Abalhaj,,aj, co-director of tCenterter for PalestinStudieses atColumbia mahm Khal has been a public face of the student movement atColombia. .Barnard,,d, since last spring during the encampm,served as the lead negotiator with the Columbia administration,ature and gentle human being and a politically sophisticated ththinker. ahmud tried his best to bring a ppeacefulto that encencampment. thethemesamepirit,,Mahmud tried to negotiate a resolution between students and the
“This Is All Retaliatory”: Judge Blocks Mahmoud Khalil’s Deportation as Trump Vows More Arrests
Barnard Administration last week during asit-inn at Milsteinall..llYouonon Cohen is a professor of Israel and Jewish studies at ColumbiUniversity..tRescindinggdivisas,,sas, canceling green card and intimidating students and staff have become toolsstools of choice for stifling free speech and undermining the FColumbia University. Rescinding visas, canceling green cards, and intimidating students and staff have become the tools of choice for stifling free speech and undermining the First Amendment. niversity. Rescinding visas, canceling green cards, and intimidating students and staff have become the tools of choice for stifling free speech and undermining the First Amendment. bia University. Rescinding visChristians,,ing greeersity includes Christians, Muslims, and Jews. y includes Christians, Muslims, and Jews. dHindus,, intimidatiatheists,sts,udents and staff have become the tools of choic’re all safe. ll safe. Overling free speech and undermining the First Amendment. Columbia University includes Christians, Muslim ersity includes Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Hindus, siks and atheists, and none of us will be safe unlessgatheredrede all ‘re all safe. Over aYork on onusand protesters also gathered at Federal Plaza in New York on MondaKhalill
demand MahmuThesheses release These are some of the vprotest:roprotest:rHands: HanKH, KH,f KH, our canow.now.oMy My name LeaneFan.n.an. I’m with tPeoplepleForum.m.uTheehe larger context from even before thiweekend,,nd,think,,ink,important.t.aThe DOJ been threatening to deport students who have stood up for the Palestinian people over the past 18 mmonths..UUm,m,hey have been calling them PrPro-Hamas,s,ey have been saying they are anti-SemSemitic.c.,Uh,,hey have been trying to demonize the students in the face of the Americanpublpublicly,ly,
publicly, they said to Israeli media that they intend on pung uh these students in jail not for 24 hours but years..eaThe The Columbia Administration has been cracking down on the students without even provocation from the federalgovernment..t. mean,,an, they only lasted one day before they brought tNYPD onto campus to suppress theencampment. . Colombia h absolutelyeen part and parcel of this ccrackdownon the [mumusicsstudents.. MMyname isMaddAA..AI am thethem the president and CEO of the New YImmigrationtCoalition..tItn. It is incredibIt is shamefulamefuly
“This Is All Retaliatory”: Judge Blocks Mahmoud Khalil’s
hameful that our communities have to continue to endure under this fascist regime simply to deliver on a publicity stunt of a campaign calleDeportaDeportation.The message that they are trysend,d,o send, which is a depone,e,ble one, is that no one is protected under free speech in this countr. Handso. Handsup,p, up, our stu! NowNow Now I’m going to call up now an experienced leader inimmigrant rights movement,nt,ent, Ravi fromNewewNew SanctuaCoalition. They want to terrorize us;n. They want tointimidatee us;on. They want tintimidateze. ThisorTrinidahome.dad.
But this is mTrinidad.iBututH’sKH’sKH’. This. Thisahamahamahhome,e,right? We have been here. We are making this our community. You all are part of that community. We are going to stand up. We are going to fight. We are not going to allow this agency, this administration, to instill fear. We are not fearful. We are strong. We are unafraid, andht? Weare going to stand up and fight for free MM release. MM KH now. My name is Alexa Vas. I am a council member representing District 8 in South Brooklyn. We are standing here. We are making this our community. You all are part of that community. We are going to stand up. We are going to fight. We are not going to allow this agency, this administration, to instill fear. We are not fearful. We are strong. We are unafraid, andight? are going to stain support My name is Alexa Vas. I am a council member representing District 8 in South Brooklyn. We are standingen herein support part and fight for free MM release. MM Ka
are standing demanding the freedom of KH If they cannot hear us, we must blouder..erWeWe musorganize..zeTheyey are coming for all ofus,,s, and it is us who will protect eacother..er. ICECEIfnd the Trump band us,, bigots have no place here in New YECE detained him to ask her to protect him after he was targetefor doxing and smear campaigns. . .Khill wrotethe quote. ote. uote. I haven’t been asleep,,o sleep, fearing thaise is a
“This Is All Retaliatory”: Judge Blocks Mahmoud Khalil’sJudge blocks Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation from United
dangerous individual might come thome.. home. I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent furtherharm,,m, hesaid..Meanwhile,,ildrop siteesite nereports. tThe TICEICE agent who detained Khalil waVin HHernandez,, who was honored by Trump during his State of the Union Address in 2019,Trump was first president. N.lda is presiAaldaof the New York Immigration CoaImmigrationalition and a and alestinian-Americaneactivist.iWest. We just saw him in that clip speaking to the crowd yesterday and Ramsey Kassam is a
professor of law at CUNY,,, the City University of NewYork,,k, where he founded the legal clinic Clear the acronym stands for creating law enforcement accountability anresponsibility..tItsIts mandate is to support Muslimand l other communities targeted by llocal,, state or federal government agencies under the guise of nnationalssecurityand counterterroris.C,ernal RConstitutionalfederal habeasss petition in theSouthernnDistrictt of New York challenging MahmudKhalill’s detention…
RamseyKasum let’s begin with you if you can explain what has taken place in the last days from Mahmud khalil’s arrest in Colombia housing after directly appealing to Colombia’s president to protect him right through to the judge yesterday uh enjoining his deportation and your emergency um uh submission thank you Amy um I can I can start with what happened to uh Mahmud and his wife you know on Saturday night they were walking home as you mentioned earlier uh Mahmud is a US permanent resident um his wife is a US citizen who
is eight monthspregnant..tThishat wathatpwasrst child next month. They Thmonth..ry reason to look forward to that momenmomentousd they’re coming home on a Saturday night around 8:00 p.m. UUh,, as they’re about to enter their building is when they’re approached by men in plain clothes who subsequently identify themselves as DHS aagents,, um and what they say is that they’re going to take Mahmud away because his student visa has been revoked,,, um his wife protested and
said that he doesn’t have a studevisa;;isa; he’s a permaneresident;;ent; he has a green c. Shee She goes upstairs to theapartment,,ent, gets the grecard,,ard, shows it to the ag. Thee The agent seeconfused,,sed, calls hsuperiors,,ors, who apparently ordered him to take Mahmud anyway and so from hperspective,,ivunderstandably,,bly, her husband was abducted before her veeyes,,yes, disappeared to a location in downtoManhattan,,tan, um and later thevening,,ing, um ocolleagues,,ues, uh and co-counsel Amy Greer and KyBaron,,ron, filedhabeas corpuspus petition in
“This Is All Retaliatory”: Judge Blocks Mahmoud Khalil’s
t in Manhattan on hibehalf,,lf, asking for him to be released and what the government did within hours othat was to move from a thousand miles away from that courthouse down to Louisiana to complicate and interfere with his access to the court, with his access to his legal team, with his access to his wife, and to his family and his support network. Um, so what we ended up having to do yesterday, unfortunately, was to move from a thousand miles away from that courthouse down to Louisiana to complicate and interfere with his access to the court, with his access to his legal team, with his access to his wife, and to his family and his support network. Um, so what we ended up having to do yesterday, unfortunately,at wafilen withourt,return Mahmud to New York.
uh, so that he can have access to his legal team, so that he can have access to the court and so that the c,,inuh,, uh, Mahmud until the court ordeotherwise,,ise, bRamsey,,se if he is a permanent resident and t been accused of any lawful iolation,iolation, thatbasis do they hhave,, any,,any, to actually try te revoke his greencard??d?Thatey question.
c.on is that this is all retaliaretaliatory.eaThe he was arrested and detained and targeted for arrest and dedetention,,,,uh, was his constitutionally protected First Amendment protected speech and activism in support of Palestinian lives and rights in Gaza anbeyondnd and the fact that hplayed,,ed, as your segmenhighlighted,,ed, a key mediation role between thuniversitytadministrationon and studentprotesters,,s,which,,h, ianything,,ng, laudable,,ble, itcommendable,,ble, it’s what you would want any student do,, do, um so none of that is
CriminTheThe government hasn’t even contended really seriously that there’s any kind of criminaactivity..tyTherere’s never been an arrest or a conviction that they could point to as far as we couldtell..lUh,,h, the government isinvoking,,g, uh and this is a somewhat novelapproach,,h, uh they’re invoking the foreign policy grounds where the Secretary ofState,,e, uh is basically saying that thiperson,,on, who is a non-citizen who is a permaneresident,ent, uh by his mere presence or activities in the United States poses a threat to US foreign
policy interesnow..noNoneone of that has been detailed ospecified,,ed um andfrankly,,y, we don’t believe it’ll fly in court because that provision of law mayexist,,t, bes it does not exist to punish constitutionally protectedspeech..h.Inn otherwords,s, it doesn’trumpppMr..rKhalilirst Amendment rirights..AAnddhen youheahear, foinstance,e,e, that President Trump oTruth Socialaid,d, quote,e,eWe know there are more students aColumbiaaa and other universities across the country who’ve engaged in pro-terrorist
antiSemitic,c,, anti-American activity and the Trumpadministrationn will not tolerateit. Whattt does this tell you about where we’reheading??gWell,l,llook,,ok,mean,n,an, we’ve all sadly become accustomed to the sort of inflammatory and frankly racist rhetoric that emanates from the Truadministration.n.oThissis is no different when it comes tMahmud.d.dIttt’s all entirely baseless and both Mahmud and we on his legal team and all of hissupporters,,s, including ththousand-pluse who showed up yesyesterday,,ntend to fight to ng
him back to New York and to vindicate not just his right to free speech but everyone’s rirightfre speech. Um. Um,m,ouknoknow, it can’t be the case thuum, um, saying something that the government disagrees with becomes cause for a night ar. Um, Um, Um, no one should accept that so,o, so, know,w,now, we’ll fight that tooth and ,elieve that this case will set the precedent that the government believes it will.it will. Itt will. It’s slready . Uh,kfired. Uh,h, yoknow,,ow, if the intent was to silence speech and to
dissuade people from coming out in support of Palestinian humrights.hWell,ll,ll, we all saw what happened yesterday Manhattan.n.aOverrer a thousand people camout,t,t, not just in solidarity with Mahmud but also in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza anbeyond,d,d, and we don’t believe that people are going to be deterred nor is the movemeuh that is critical of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and US foreign policy and its support for Israel nor is that movement carried mainly bynon-citizenss.. Imean,,n, that’s also falsehood.od. American
are the ones who are driving the movem,d of course there are many non-citizen activists among them,,it’s primarily Americans, an,eyot going to be able to deport their way out of s movement..Cann you explain what’s going to happen in court tomorromsey KKasum,m,and aalso,,awasas sending him to Louisiant just outrightpunitiv?e??Absolutely,my. I mean,iew is that hdetention itself was punitive and retaliatory for his FirFirFirtendment-tected speech and
support of Palestinian lives and rights and then subsequently moving him to Louisiana was retaliatory and punitive because he filed the habhabeasrpus petition in federal court contesting the legality and constitutionality of his detention and so the government’s response was to try to interfere with the court’s jurisdiction to try to interfere with his access to counsel and to his family and to support networkss by moving him a thousand miles away to Louisiana,,, where it believes it’ll have access knoier
immigration courts and whatnotwhatnoto you kno, hhope, even though we don’t expect the government to do the reasonable thing and voluntarily bring him back,k,huh,h, to New York and if they don’t tell us today that they’re going to that,t,at, then we’ll be in court tomorrow asking the court to order them to that,t,at, um and we will litigate the rest of tissues,s,es, including tfreeeespeechhh issues from there and what aboutthe,e,, ombia UUniversity,, uh,h, Mahmud lives iCoColumbiabiaolumbia IA UnivHousing.g.oThiss. This direct appeal to the president of
Colombia saying he was living in fear that he cousleep,sleep,p, um how could Colombia have protectehim?m?mUh,,Uh, dICEECE enter private Colombia housinillegally?y?yUm,m,m, there have been numeroureports,,ts, um ICEious ColColombia,a, housing facilities in the last couple of weeweeks,s, um somsubstsubstantiated,sonot.t.oThattat certainly raises a question about Colombia’role in thee in thee in thepicture,e,pthough..,Uh,houghUh,UColombia’sa’sia’s sil—well, I should say theColombiaa administration’s silence—e—s been noteworthy and shshameful, um for a
university that has so often professed its concern forstudents,,s, um it is remarkably silent now that students are literally beinabducted,,ed, um off of the streein,n,in, yknow,w,ow, surroundiColumbiaaia’campus,s,s, um and and and I stress that this is the administration that I’m pointing a finger towardbecause,e,e, yoknow,,ow, as your segmeshowed,d,euh,h,uh, othsegments,ts,nts, other parts of the Columcommunity,y,ity, whether it’s the faculty or students,s,nts, have cout,ut,ut, um and thatcommendable.e.lTheyye’ve come out in support ofMahmud.d.
and of his family uht’s that’s great to see uh but the university itself uh and its role in all of thisthis,,,m, has been sadly shameful tdate.te. I’d lie to bringin,,n,um,,m, MoraOad,ad, president of the New YoImmigrationion Coalition uh into the conversati. Morad,d,rad, your response to what has been happening now with,,ith, mmHal,,Hal, know,,know, this is unfortunately part and parcel to the Trump immigration agenda that we’re seeing play out from his family separation agenda to hmassass deportation pla. Um,m, Um, Mahmud KH also
falls under the category of this Truadministrationion trying to do everything it can tstiflele people’rights..ts.Um,,m, yoknow,,ow, we’ve seen THomann go out across FoxNews,,s, CNN and other networks talking about how individuals who are immigrants don’t have any rights and this is sort of the rhetoric that they continue to hammer downon,,n, but fortunately for everyone who calls this countryhome,,e, they have constitutional rights aMahmoudoudahK.ud K. is entitled to those rights as well and what we’re seeing right now with the
Department of Homeland Security and thankful for the CI clear as wellthees the CenterConstitutional Rightsor stepping in and supporting Mahmud in this moment, ,at he has a right to due process and that in this moment he has done nothing wrong. He. Heenot been charged nor convicted with any crimes and it’s incredibly shameful that we continue to see ColoColombia,,u know,,, spiral downw. This universityused to be something that was considered the cream of the crop of universities,,, one of the top Ivy Leagues. There report from
the forward yesterday, u, uh,h,indicating that it may have been some board members o, uh,h,uh, the university who actuallcalled,,m,,d, um, authoritiesMahmud,,hmud, which is incredibly disingenuous for an institution that continues to parade itself, uh, anh, an, uh, an institution that wachampionhampion its students and build new l, uh,h,ers, uh, that we need for thi. Whattld. What message is this sending to not just their immigrant students but all their students afamilies,,ium,,, um, that this is something that they would, uh,h,, uh, participatin? Andd? And you menti, uh,h,d, uh,possibility..ility.
of connection directly to the university about his ar. Whatt Wabout,,bout, has the university issued any statement given the fact that they’ve been talking so much in recent montabout,,ouuh,, uh, free speech and protection of free spe? Itt? It does not seem that they hayet. Um, they did send out an email to students,. Um, they did send out an email to students,yet., shortly after the incident,cating that they were, you know, aware of situations occurring,, you know, aware of situations occurring,iden, which only begs the question if,tion if,y were, you know, aware of situations occurring, um, w,hey will not cooperateColumbiaw ICE onto their properties without a judicial warrant.. Why was ICE allowed onto that property?? Um,, thisly even more so begs the question:: What is Colombia’s role? In This Moment,et me ask you about a New York Times piece that came out right before mud wasken by ICE,aying the Trump Administration is finalizing a new ban on travel to the United States for citizens of certain countries that would be broader than the versions President Trump issued in the
first term,, a draft recommendation circulating inside the executive branch proposes a red list of countries whose citizens Trump could bar from entering the United States,eferring essentially to a new Muslim ban, this is part and parcel to,, again,, Trump’s racist and fascist agenda that he campaigned on and now that he is in office, he, he is trying to deliver on.. Wew this happen in part one of Trump when he was in office and he’s looking tovive that policy and actually put another ban in place.. Welieve that
It’s imminent any day now so folks who are,, uh,, you know,, intending to travel outside of the country should reconsider their travels and people who are outside of the country,, um,, who have visas or are LPRs or or green card holders,, should be idering traveling back,, uh,, as soon as possible.. Democracy Now is funded by viewers like you.. Please give today at democracynow.org.
