photo: Mary Altaffer/AP
UUJME Statement on the Detention of Palestinian Mahmoud Khalil by ICE/DHS
Opposing genocide is not a crime!
Halt ICE Kidnappings and Deportations!
Sign the letters demanding Mahmoud’s release!
Donate to his support fund!
Stop Project Esther!
March 13, 2025
=====
The Trump administration has caused the arrest and detention of recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder, targeted because of his prominence as a spokesperson for the encampment at Columbia University where students and professors were protesting the US-funded Israeli war on Palestinians in Gaza. This arrest is blatantly unconstitutional and straight from well-worn authoritarian playbooks. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must immediately release Mahmoud. Columbia University – and all college administrations – must start protecting their students from the reach of the Trump regime, and elected officials must take all action in their power to ensure that Mahmoud is released and students are protected. Mahmoud was not shown a warrant, and his wife, a U.S. Citizen who is eight months pregnant, was intimidated and harassed.
=====
From Muslims for Just Futures:
“...Columbia University, which recently published a new protocol on its plans to cooperate with ICE, has targeted Khalil for his Palestinian identity and outspoken activism on multiple occasions over the last 17 months. He served as a lead negotiator during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last spring and has frequently appeared in media interviews and press conferences. Columbia’s continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible. Like many other Arab and Muslim students, Khalil has been the target of various zionist harassment campaigns, fueled by doxing websites like Canary Mission. This racist targeting serves to instill fear in pro-Palestine activists as well as a warning to others. Add your name to demand the immediate release of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention and a reversal to Columbia University's protocol permitting ICE on campus without a warrant.”
=====
Take action now: Movement partners are asking that people quickly send letters to multiple decision makers at Columbia and Barnard as well as DHS, ICE, and other officials using this single-link petition which has garnered more than three million signatures. Additional action links and a fundraising link are listed at the end of this statement.
Details: Columbia University enabled the presence of DHS agents on their campus and in university housing to detain Mahmoud as he arrived home after a Ramadan iftar dinner on Saturday, March 8, with his spouse. He was taken away by plainclothes agents in an unmarked vehicle, with no clear information as to his destination. This is an act of disappearing a person and is highly alarming. Later it was learned that he was swiftly transported from New Jersey to a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, more than a thousand miles away. Detention facility officials denied him the right to speak privately with his attorneys.
This is a serious first amendment rights violation which must be named as part of the rush into fascism that we are experiencing in the United States. In the lead-up to this abduction, Mahmoud was the target of a smear campaign and was doxxed and received death threats. After Mahmoud contacted university officials for support, none was given.
The Trump administration is platforming and empowering antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Muslim racism, xenophobia, and white nationalism. Nobody is fooled by their claims that they are deporting students in order to fight antisemitism. Deporting students, silencing political speech and dissent, and punishing anti-war student activists endangers all of us. We will not allow our communities to be divided. We must raise our voices and take action to reverse this tide.
At a March 12 hearing, Federal Judge Jesse Furman ordered that Mahmoud remain in detention in Louisiana awaiting a trial and that he not be deported unless and until there is an order from his court. The detention facility was ordered to permit private consultation with his attorneys.
We will aim to provide an update soon with any further recommended actions and encourage you to subscribe to news and alerts from the Council on Islamic American Affairs (CAIR) and Palestine Legal.
Palestinians are not strangers to deportation and displacement. In the book by UUA General Assembly 2007 Ware Lecturer Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years War on Palestine, the exile of Palestinian leaders in the 1930s by the British occupying power is documented. The more massive project of displacing Palestinians from their homes–during the creation of the State of Israel and to this day–is also documented, and by now very well known to many. The modern example of mass displacement has been the genocidal war on Gaza in which nearly 2 million Palestinians have been displaced.
The deportation campaign initiated by the Trump administration uses Executive Orders and directives based on the Orwellian Project Esther which seeks to repress people speaking out for Palestinian rights and lives. Such a project endangers the freedom and safety of all campus anti-war protestors, including Jewish anti-war protestors, targeting international students first and threatening the non-profit status of many groups that speak out for Palestinian rights. Read this article by the CEO of the U.S. Jewish group Bend the Arc about how such campaigns constitute “smokescreen antisemitism” and threaten the safety of Jews rather than protecting them. It is shameful that this campaign was enabled by the administration and some professors of an institution of higher education. Rabbi Brant Rosen has penned a powerful blog post titled "First, they came for Mahmoud Khalil," echoing the famous words of Martin Niemoller about what happened to people under the Nazi regime in Germany.
This case is a test balloon. The justice-loving community must go all-out to demand the freedom of Mahmoud Khalil and push back against the dangerous Project Esther. His freedom is imperative to ensure the preservation of his rights and safety and that of all activists on issues targeted by the Trump administration and its enablers.
=====
Relevant Resources
2024 Action of Immediate Witness: Solidarity with Palestinians, passed by 74% of delegates to the UUA General Assembly. Contains examples of ways to be in solidarity.
2024 Statement in Solidarity with Student Protests for Gaza initiated by MPower Change about the urgent need to protect free speech on campuses, with 12 Unitarian Universalist signatory organizations.
2023 UUJME webinar - IHRA: An Anti-Free-Speech Definition of Antisemitism and How to Oppose It. This definition is being used in Project Esther and other venues to criminalize dissent around speech and activism for Palestinian rights and lives. The Jewish scholarly author of this definition has emphatically rejected its use for codes on campus free speech.
2018 Action of Immediate Witness: End Family Separation and Detention of Asylum Seekers and Abolish ICE passed by delegates to the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly. The cruelty is ongoing.
Know Your Rights cards in multiple languages, informing you on what you should and should not say when approached by ICE.
=====
Take Action:
To repeat: With two easy-to-use petitions, send letters to multiple decision makers at Columbia and Barnard as well as DHS, ICE, and other officials with these two petitions.
Note: If you are not a U.S. citizen, for your security and safety please do not provide your real name in the "First Name" and "Last Name" fields of petitions.
Demand the Immediate Release of Palestinian Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention
Campaign by Deportation Defense
Release Mahmoud Khalil & Protect All Student Activists
Campaign by Palestinian-led Adalah Justice Project
Contact Congress
Campaign by Jewish Voice for Peace
Donate to the Support Fund
Friends have organized a fundraiser to support Mahmoud and his wife and unborn child.
Donate at this link: https://chuffed.org/project/justice-for-mahmoud-khalil
=====
Sign up for our emails to make sure you are notified of the latest statements, action alerts, and learning spaces: https://www.uujme.org/join
Sign up for our educational webinars and monthly advocacy gatherings on the UUJME Calendar.
