EXCLUSIVE – Mahmoud Khalil Talks To Zeteo: 'I Think We Are Winning'
The Palestinian student protest leader sat down with Prem, just days after being released from ICE detention.
NEW YORK CITY – Three months ago, I was told about an alarming episode: masked agents followed a student protest leader into a Columbia University-owned building, detained him in sloppy fashion with no warrant, and whisked him away from his pregnant wife.
In the following hours and days, we reported the troubling incident, sought to locate the seemingly-kidnapped individual, and revealed how the Trump administration carried it out and how Columbia failed to stand against it.
In the weeks that followed, it became clear that the story of Mahmoud Khalil would be a stress test of how far this government could go in weaponizing immigration policy to silence and repress those whose speech it didn’t like.
On Wednesday, hours after Zohran Mamdani – a staunch defender of Khalil, and Palestinian and immigrant rights – shocked the world in winning the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, I traveled uptown, near Columbia, where Mamdani’s father teaches.
There, I met with Khalil, who was released from ICE custody last week. He told me more about how exactly he was whisked away, what detention was like inside, how he dealt with being away from his newborn son, Deen, and wife, Noor, and where he sees the politics around Israel’s apartheid state going, particularly in the US.
Here’s how our conversation, edited for length and clarity, went:
Let’s start with what exactly happened the night you were detained.
KHALIL: I was returning from an iftar. Noor and I were walking back on a Saturday evening, basically looking forward to just chilling for the night. But the moment I opened the [door to the] building, I felt that I was being followed. Once I entered the apartment, they came closer to me. And then they asked me, ‘Are you Mahmoud Khalil?’ I told them, ‘Who are you?’ They said the police first. I was like, ‘Which police?’ Then they mentioned that they are from the Department of Homeland Security. I asked for a warrant. They refused. They asked Noor to leave the scene. She refused. They told her, ‘Then, we [will] arrest you if you don't leave.’
What was remarkable is that the first thing they said, when I told them, ‘Am I under arrest?’ or ‘Show me the arrest warrant’ – they said, ‘Your visa has been revoked.’ I was like, ‘I don't have a visa, so, what are you talking about?’ And that sort of caught them off guard.
To me, [that] was a surprise; I knew that they would come at some point, but to me, the limit of it would be two things: first, that I am a permanent resident; second, that nothing that's being spread online is true. So I expected them to do at least some due diligence about who I am, what I actually did.
Then, Noor, of course, went to bring the green card. I was just chatting with them, like friendly. I was so chill because, again, I knew that I have nothing to hide, and I did not do anything wrong. But then, when they saw the green card, [the DHS agent] called his boss saying, ‘Oh, like, he has a green card. I have it.’ And then they told him, ‘Bring him anyway.’
It just felt like you're being kidnapped, arbitrarily detained.
After you were detained, I remember in the hours after, we were scrambling to figure out where you were. And, of course, you yourself were scrambling to know where you'd be taken. What was your experience like in that interim time?
KHALIL: The first 30-something hours were the most difficult hours compared to the whole detention. [I] was being transported a lot – from New York to New Jersey; from New Jersey to JFK; then JFK to Texas; Texas to Alexandria [in Louisana]; then Alexandria to the facility itself [in Jena, Louisana], and during all of these transfers, except for the plane ride, I was shackled – so not only handcuffs, but even like shackled [at my ankles]. And that happened the moment that we arrived in Federal Plaza [in New York]. Once we got out of the car, they shackled me. And that felt very disrespectful, dehumanizing to a lot of degrees.
At first, I was alone in New York, in the Federal Plaza. It was 9:00 pm, I think [when] we arrived in Federal Plaza. We stayed there until like 2:30 am. So I was alone in the room, and officers were just working on my case. I would insist I needed to call my lawyer. They wouldn't [let me], and they didn't know what I was being charged with, until around half past 12:00 am. They called me to read my notice to appear, or the list of allegations. And that was the first time I saw the [Marco] Rubio determination, or I saw the allegation of it. I couldn't believe it, like ‘foreign policy threat’ and all of that, but at that point, I felt, ‘Oh, it is serious. And they are charging me with something.’ And then I also heard them saying the White House is asking for an update.
I only knew that we were going to Louisiana when we were boarding the plane. So, these 30 hours, I was totally in the dark; I didn't know anything about what was happening on the outside: Is Noor OK? Did anything happen to her? Are the lawyers working on my case? I didn't know [anything]. And the officers refused to tell me anything, but I can see them reading the news about me on their phones, but they wouldn't tell me literally anything. So, that was a very high level of anxiety during this transfer, but also then, when we arrived in Louisiana… just the whole thing, like you can think of any sketchy transfer – just people in plainclothes taking you from one place to another. In Louisiana, we left the airport in a car and then a few minutes later, we changed the cars – they take me from one car to another car – all shackled. And by the time I arrived in Jena, I couldn't walk because my leg was swollen from the shackles. And then inside, I didn't know what I should be expecting. I arrived there [and] they put me in a large dorm with over 70 other men. [The other detainees] were very welcoming.
I couldn't sleep because I still hadn’t talked to anyone at that point. They usually give you a PIN code to make phone calls. Because I arrived in the evening, they told me that this can only happen in the morning. So I had to wait until the morning to call anyone.
When I called Noor, she said everything is fine. She explained to me the whole situation.
What was your experience in detention?