Targeted for removal for advocating for Palestinian rights, U.S. permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil is challenging his detention in federal court in NYC

March 10, 2025, New York – Today, a Palestinian activist detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Saturday filed an emergency petition asking to be returned to New York, where his case challenging the legality of his detention is pending. Following the filing of a habeas corpus petition on his behalf in New York, Mahmoud Khalil was quickly transferred to a facility in Louisiana, where he is more than a thousand miles from his family and attorneys. 

A graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil played a prominent role last year in the protests against Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. As they took him into custody, DHS agents told his lawyer over the phone that they were acting on a State Department order to revoke his student visa. When his lawyer told them that he was a legal permanent resident with a green card, the agents said that had been revoked, too. Agents arrested him in front of his wife, a U.S. citizen, who is eight months pregnant with their first child. 

“It feels like my husband was kidnapped from home, and at a time when we were supposed to be planning to welcome our first child into this world,” said Khalil’s wife, who prefers that her name not be used in reporting. “Everyone who has met Mahmoud can attest to his exceptional character, kindness, and deep commitment to helping others. The overwhelming support we have received is a testament to the profound impact he has on those around him.”

Khalil’s arrest marks an escalation in the Trump administration crackdown on Palestinian rights activism. It comes on the heels of the cancellation of $400 million in grants and loans to Columbia, an epicenter in the nationwide student protests sparked by Israel’s devastation of Gaza. Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked to an article on the arrest and tweeted, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” President Donald Trump wrote in a defamatory post on social media, “ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University.”

“Agents arrested a U.S. permanent resident as he was walking home at night with his pregnant spouse because his speech and activism are not to the government’s liking,” said CLEAR Co-Director Ramzi Kassem. “If our society remains attached to the rule of law, and if speech in the United States remains free, then no one should accept what happened to Mahmoud.”

DHS transferred Khalil to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center after his lawyers filed a federal habeas petition in the Southern District of New York, challenging his detention.  

“The arrest, detention, and attempted deportation of a prominent Palestinian human rights activist for his constitutionally protected activity that the administration disagrees with is not only patently unlawful, it is a further dangerous step into modern-day McCarthyist repression. The courts must stop this lawlessness before this chilling form of repression expands further,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy.

Filed on Khalil’s behalf by CLEAR and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the petition asks the court to order his return to the New York City area. 

For more information, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights case page.

The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility project (CLEAR), housed at CUNY School of Law, supports clients, communities, and movements who wish to contest the various expressions of the sprawling U.S. security state. Follow CLEAR on Facebook, @CUNY_CLEAR on Twitter/X, and @CUNY_CLEAR on Instagram.