Moderator’s Note: Below is a letter from Mahmoud Khalil in its entirety, dictated over the phone from Immigrations and Customs (ICE) detention in Louisiana. A permanent resident taken by the government for his political speech. The phrase “who has the right to have rights?” was coined by Hannah Arendt who escaped Nazi Germany and wrote poignantly and pointedly about the rise of fascism. While on the surface, this letter doesn’t have an obvious link to FAR’s mission, we feel it is deeply intertwined. Who has the right the have rights? Women once had no rights and it appears we are losing them again at breakneck speed. Immigrant’s rights in this country are being stripped also at breakneck speed. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. If we can’t answer “EVERYONE” to Arendt and Khalil’s question, then human rights mean nothing for any of us.
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba.
I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.
Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel.
Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.
The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent
Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
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Thank you for posting this in its entirety. It is so important that the truth be shared.
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As dreadful as this story is I think we have to move from a place of COMMUNITY to stand up to atrocities individual and collective – my question is how do we make this transition….as things stand now things will get worse.
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I was not all in on the spring protests. I was unable to align myself fully with either side. But I support Khalil because I believe in the rule of law and due process which are in serious jeopardy when people are picked up and detained without a hearing. The actions taken against Khalil are not those of a democracy.
We all should be uncomfortable. Anyone can become the “other.” Today you are in but tomorrow you may be out and you do not have the law to protect you. You are at the whim of a dictator.
I note that I fully support the recent demonstrations by Palestinians against Hamas and mourn the death of Odaie Nasser Saadi Al-Ruba.
I, also, believe we women are who will save us. Too many men appeare to have “bent the knee.”
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With respect Ma’am, there are no two sides to this except right and wrong. Either one is against genocide, or they support it. If not directly, then indirectly with “neutrality” the same way the Swiss did. There’s no math computation to this. Simply if you call out a genocidal and tyrannical regime as being genocidal, their lobbyists and paid politicians slander you of being “antisemitic” even if you’re Jewish and support Palestine.
Which is where we are here.
I wasn’t going to talk about this, but silence is complicity. Where paid politicians persecute college professors and students. At the behest of a foreign power that bankrolls them. If this had been Russia, the scandal would never cease to be spoken of in the media. As for the so called “protests” against Hamas, that’s an Israeli media op.
They do them all of the time. Like the “Palestinian” nurse (with an Israeli accent) who claimed there were Hamas tunnels in “her” hospital. Or that one time the IOF pointed at a calendar in Arabic. And believed the world was stupid enough to think it was a terrorist list. The fact is, the Resistance, not just Hamas but all the different Rebel Factions in Palestine, have never had greater support. Either nationally nor internationally.
And it will only continue to grow. Meanwhile there are scores of protests of angry Israelis burning their own country to the ground. Because Benjamin Mileikowsky (his real name) broke the truce (as he has in the past) and restarted attacking and bombing civilians. And he stopped releasing the Palestinian hostages they have kept in concentration camps for years. Which is why Hamas is fighting again.
And why they didn’t release their own hostages. And in many cases Mileikowsky, has even murdered his own people. Not that he’s the first. Since 1986, the state of Israel set up The Hannibal Directive, a military protocol aimed at preventing the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. Even if it means risking harm to the soldiers themselves.
Aka they kill their own soldiers. And now kill Israeli civilians as well. To stop them from being used for negotiations. But none of that is ever spoken of in American media. Even in Israel they speak about it.
An ex soldier spoke about this in the Jersusalem post. The IOF has even killed the same hostages they claimed to want to free. And they did it on purpose. That’s the quiet part that needs to be spoken off outloud.
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I 100% support the Freedom of Palestine from Colonial Oppression and Genocide. And I decry the Fascism in the US. Which has been going on since before Trump. He’s a mere symptom of a much larger problem. Mainly that the US is “democratic” in name only.
A lot of people were condemning him for cutting off USAID. But they neglect to point out that this department has backed right wing opposition movements and civil wars in the past while claiming to be a charity. As a matter of fact as recently as Trump’s first regime, they were behind the Coup attempt against the Socialist President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and his Co-President and Wife Rosario Murillo, and tried to destroy the country under the weight of far right terrorists and criminal organizations. Then USAID tried to do the same thing to Venezuela and even Peru and also failed. They and other “ngo”‘s of the US Regime succeeded in Bolivia overthrowing the indigenous socialist President there.
But eventually failed under the People’s Uprising that replace him with a female socialist indigenous leader instead. So this isn’t just Trump. The only good thing about Trump, is he’s so stupid, that he doesn’t bother to hide his tyranny behind a mask of civility. Like Biden or even Bush. He doesn’t bother to try and claim this is all for democracy. He openly says the truth.
He’s doing it for himself and the far right. And ultimately American Imperialism. They have already done things like this. Simply Americans have short memories. But people like me remember.
Because we’re the ones whose communities are targeted by both parties. And traumatized and re-traumatized over and over again. Until it’s in our ethnic memory. America has never been great. And not just because of Herr Drumpf.
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FREE MAHMOUD KAHLIL AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!
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Amen! 🙏
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“Objector” A documentary about the indoctrination of the people on the Israel side who are forced to join the military. This woman refused to join and opposed the subjugation of the Palestinians. She went to prison. You can see it for free on KANOPY.
Here is a sight that updates what is happening in this horrible war: israelpalestine.org
A podcast called “Spiritual Brewpub” if you are deconstructing Christian beliefs.
I was raised as an Evangelical Christian. My beliefs have changed. They are centered around compassion and equality now…. not prophecies, hell doctrine, end times and rapture.
I was indoctrinated for years. Part of my deconstructing has been learning true human stories. I’ve pulled away from the traditions of people who want to have power over others through scapegoating etc.
I am trying to appeal to people in my circles by letting them know sources of human stories. Not political and religious ideological agendas. It’s worked and it hasn’t. But I’m trying. And yes some will never have the ears to hear. I don’t waste my breath on them.
These religious and political ideologies normalize us to have NO compassion. “Those are the bad people so it’s okay…” It is so easy to think in these generalized ways and it is so dangerous.
I believe most of us if we knew… really knew our neighbors and we saw them being taken away or killed in front of us we would be devastated. Right now it still feels somewhat distant to many of us. If we keep “othering” it won’t be.
There are no easy answers right now. The answer for me is to try to stay in a heart centered place. But I will NOT tolerate hate speech. I’ve somewhat recently lost the relationship with my dad because of his end times beliefs. I am a hairstylist and I’ve lost clients due to this. I simply will not be passive if you are racist, bigoted or say genocide is okay.
I support all in this thread. My heart goes out Mahmoud Khalil, his wife and baby and to the many others that have been detained. To women who can’t get thier medical needs met. To the people dying in war..to all of you.❤️
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