Mahmoud Khalil and Trump’s war on pro-Palestinian activism
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Al Jazeera Podcasts. Today, a U.S. permanent resident arrested for pro-Palestine activism at Columbia University. His detention appears to be one of the first efforts by Trump to fulfill his promise to seek the deportation of some foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement. Why the U.S. government wants to deport Mahmoud Khalil and what it means for the right to protest in America. I'm Kevin Hurtin, and this is The Take.

On Wednesday, Mahmoud Khalil's legal case kicked off in federal court in New York. But Mahmoud wasn't there. His lawyer has had no contact with him since he was transferred out of New York to Louisiana. But outside the courthouse, protesters gathered. I am a staff attorney with The Clear Project and one of Mahmoud Khalil's attorneys. And I will be reading a statement on behalf of Mahmoud Khalil's wife, who does not wish to be named.

My husband was kidnapped from our home. And it's shameful that the United States government continues to hold him because he stood for the rights and lives of his people. My guest today has been in close contact with Mahmoud's lawyer and his family.

I'm Meghnath Bose. I am an independent reporter and investigative journalist based in New York City. I have been covering Mahmood Khalil's arrest for Dropside News since Saturday night when this took place. And I was a student at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism last year. I graduated in August 2024. But before that, I was actually a student journalist covering the Gaza Solidarity encampment at Columbia University.

So, Magnad, in that process, you got to know Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of that movement. Here's a clip of him speaking during the protest last year. This is not a matter of simply violating university rules. This is a movement, an anti-war movement. We have sparked similar Gaza solidarity encampments across the nation and even across the globe.

Can you just start us off by describing him, what kind of figure he was on campus and what he stood for? So, Mehmood has been someone who was on the front lines of that historic protest that inspired similar encampments in solidarity with Gaza, not just here all across the United States, but really all across the world.

And he was someone who would always appear to be speaking calmly as he engaged with campus security, university officials, and indeed the highest echelons of the university's administration, including members of the Columbia administration, who were trying to get these protesters to back off and make the encampment disappear.

So, he was holding his ground along with his fellow lead negotiator, Sweta Polat. They were holding their ground, but he was doing that through dialogue. He was doing that through discussion and he was doing that calmly in a level-headed manner. And that's the Mahmood Khalil we've seen on Columbia's campus over the past year and a half.

Those discussions he's always conducted in a civil manner. And that's something I'm sure the university administration would probably be willing to acknowledge, but maybe not on the record right now. There was an encampment set up on campus, and this was disruptive to the university, according to officials there. And they needed to negotiate how to get rid of the encampment. And Mahmoud was one of the negotiators. That's what you're saying.

Yeah, and not just that. Mind you, that was the university's demand that the encampment be done away with. But Mahmood and Suweda, who were the two lead negotiators on behalf of the Gaza Solidarity encampment, had demands of their own, of the protesters' own.

And they were demanding that Columbia University divest from all the investments that they have in companies that function in Israel. They were demanding amnesty for the student protesters who were part of these pro-Palestine protests since October 2023, as well as during April 2024 when these encampments were taking place.

This story then starts on Saturday, March 8th, when federal agents come to campus looking for Mahmood. Walk us through what went down on Saturday. So it's around half past 8 p.m. Mahmood and his wife are returning from an iftar. This is the holy month of Ramadan, and they're returning from an iftar on Saturday evening.

As they're entering their Columbia residential building, they are accosted by agents, one of whom identifies themselves as being from the Department of Homeland Security. The agents then proceed to tell

Mahmood Khalil, that his student visa has been revoked. This is according to the testimony that we've heard from his wife. And that is extremely ironic because Mahmood Khalil is not in the United States on a student visa currently. He's a lawful permanent resident. So that was, you could say, arguably misstep number one.

Misstep number two, when they asked the officials for a warrant, they weren't provided any. Now, this gets us into this very complicated question of how much did Columbia University know? Right. Did Columbia University receive a warrant for Mahmood Khalil? At this stage, we still don't know if there was a warrant.

It's unclear. The details aren't clear. And what's important is at the time, as Mahmood Khalil and his wife were asking if there's a warrant, they weren't being provided any details. In fact, they got their lawyer, Amy Greer, on the phone right then with the officials in the lobby of the Columbia University residential building. And the lawyer's questions weren't being answered as well. They hung up on her. And this is according to the lawyer and the wife. Now,

This is the situation in which Mahmood Khalil was taken away by these officials. What do we know about his whereabouts over the past few days and what his lawyers and family have been doing to fight the case? His lawyer, Amy Greer, around 36 hours after the detention, told me that we do not know Mahmood's whereabouts.

What we know from the online detainee locator available, made available to us by the Immigration Customs Enforcement Authority, or ICE, is that Khalil was initially taken to a facility, a detention facility in New Jersey. However, soon after, this is around Sunday night, early Monday, suddenly we see a change that his location is shown to be as a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana.

So why was he being moved from New Jersey to Louisiana? I mean, there are all sorts of theories out there that ICE would want to move a detainee to a jurisdiction that they feel is more favorable towards their case. But the crux of this is that for a really, really long time, the lawyer, Amy Greer, had not been able to establish contact with his client. On Monday morning, however, his wife had a conversation with Mahmood.

And you've been in contact with his wife, haven't you? So my fellow reporter and I, we've been reporting this story together. We've been in touch with Mahmoud's wife.

His wife actually put out a statement on the 11th of March, which is the first time she's publicly spoken about this. And she said, my husband, Mahmood Khalil, is my rock. He's my home and he's my happy place. I'm currently eight months pregnant and I could not imagine a better father for my child. And I think it was a really heartwarming response from a woman who's obviously under a lot of stress with her husband being taken away from her just desperately.

days, weeks before her expected delivery. And she says, instead of putting together our nursery and washing baby clothes in anticipation of our first child, I'm left sitting in our apartment wondering when Mahmood will get a chance to call me from a detention center.

Yeah, authorities haven't been transparent sharing information, but they've been talking a lot. Spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed Khalil's arrest, saying it was, quote, in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism. McLaughlin also alleged that Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. We've also heard from the U.S. Speaker of the House and Trump's press secretary on this.

If you are on a student visa and you're in America and you're an aspiring young terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you're going home. We're going to arrest your

tail, and we're going to send you home where you belong. And this is just getting started. Columbia University has been given the names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity, and they are refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus. And as the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that. We're hearing the same phrasing, pro-Hamas. Would you describe Mahmoud's views and his activities that you saw on campus as pro-Hamas?

I mean, look, Mahmoud Khalil's politics in so far as his activism in Colombia went were very clear. He was standing up for the rights of the Palestinian people, of which he is one. He was standing up against what Israel was doing in Gaza, the carnage and the destruction of human lives with relative impunity. And with U.S. support, Khalil spoke strongly about the U.S.'s role in this.

He spoke strongly about Colombia's role in this by sort of drawing a link that if Colombia is supporting or investing in companies that continue to engage in Israel,

that Colombia is complicit, right? And now one may agree or disagree with Khalil's points of view, but the fact remains that Khalil raised these points in an extremely civil manner. And even if you look at all his clips of his speeches or his interactions with the media over the course of the encampment last April,

There are several of those things that have been posted online. How is it that not one of them can show him celebrating the killing of civilians?

How is it that not one of them can show him advocating what he's being accused of? He's being accused of being aligned with and linked to terrorism. But what one link can this administration show that ties Mahmood Khalil to Hamas in any way?

Yeah, I mean, he's been accused of distributing pro-Hamas propaganda flyers. One, is that true? And two, even if it was, how is that even relevant? Because isn't that just protected speech? Look, there are two interesting questions here. And one is we've heard about the supposed flyers that he was distributing. Let me just say that this is just on social media and it's unverified.

So there is not just a pinch of salt. You'd want a bucket of salt to take those claims with unless something verifiable can be shown. The second aspect is whether it's protected speech. One would say that the First Amendment would definitely guarantee that you're not just allowed to criticize or critique countries beyond the shores of the U.S., but you're allowed to criticize the U.S. itself, too.

And so there seems to be this almost exalted position that is afforded to criticism of Israel as almost being so sacrilegious that it's worse than even criticism of the United States, which seems to be permitted by this country. So the free speech dilemma is really what can be only referred to as the Palestine exception to free speech. After the break, we'll have more with Meghnaud. This week on True Crime Reports...

It's July 2020. We're in the port town of Salerno in Italy. Police have just raided a cargo ship and made an unprecedented discovery. The ship is transporting machinery and paper cylinders. But when police crack them open, inside they find bags and bags stuffed with tiny white pills. 84 million of them.

The pills are a very dangerous, highly addictive drug called Captagon. And this hoard is worth more than $1 billion. It's a drug you may not have heard of, but it's been wreaking havoc across the Middle East. True Crime Reports, a new global crime show from Al Jazeera. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Magnad, one of the things that's so shocking here is that Mahmoud has permanent residence in the United States. His wife is an American citizen. He's a green card holder. And of course, green card holders can be deported if they've committed a crime. But there's no evidence that Mahmoud has committed a crime. It seems like he's being targeted just for his pro-Palestinian views and his activism. Can you talk about the specifics of how Marco Rubio and the State Department are justifying this action?

It's interesting you ask that because there have been reports over the past couple of days that of, say, for example, a White House official speaking with the free press and saying that the question here is not whether Mahmoud Khalil broke the law.

It's that essentially the Secretary of State and the U.S. government felt that he was detrimental to the United States foreign policy and interests and national security interests. Now, that's a very, very important distinction. Is the government going to enter university campuses and arrest individuals who've engaged in peaceful protest for their views critical of the United States foreign policy?

If that, and that to a permanent resident. Now, the reason I don't emphasize too much on the fact that he's a permanent resident is because ideally these basic free speech rights should be available even to non-citizens, even to non-permanent residents and to say, for example, foreign students or international students. But given the structures of US immigration law, it's important to mention that he's a lawful permanent resident. So,

The question of the admission that is sort of seeming to come out of the White House is that we've not arrested him for any breaking of the law. That's not what we're looking at. We're looking at whether he was detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests. And that's an interesting admission to my part that reveals more than they probably wanted to.

Yeah, this is a Cold War era Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, which gives the Secretary of State broad authority to deport people if they are acting. What does it say here? I have it. Unreasonable grounds to believe that the immigrants presence or activities in the US would have potentially serious or adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

And you know which group was disproportionately attacked during that era of McCarthyism under this particular law? It was Jewish progressives. So literally a law that has received substantial criticism over the years in its application during that era as having been anti-Semitic.

is being seemingly used as the most convenient way to suppress free speech on campuses and beyond by creating an example out of one student. And there really isn't much that separates what Khalil was doing versus what so many hundreds and thousands of other protesters were doing, except that it was Khalil against whom there was a targeted online campaign tagging Trump and Rubio and asking for his arrest and deportation.

So, Magna, there have been a lot of protests in the past few days on Columbia's campus and across New York in response to Mahmoud's arrest. So obviously, there's a lot of anger at the Trump administration, but also at Columbia. Right. Mahmoud reportedly emailed the administration asking for protection before he was arrested. He said, I haven't been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. What do you make of how Columbia has been handling this so far?

I met Mahmood on Thursday, two days prior to him being arrested. That day, Mahmood Khalil was telling me that he feels he's a victim of anti-Palestinian racism by Columbia University. It was in the context of how campus security officials were behaving with him that day on Columbia's campus as he attended a protest.

But it speaks volumes that that was the time that this online campaign had started and he was already feeling uncomfortable, not just because he was a target of this campaign, but also because he did not feel that Columbia University had his back. And after this sort of intense campaign over a period of two days, Mehmood Khalil reached out to the university and said, hey, I don't feel okay, I don't feel safe.

What did the university do? The university hasn't even told us if they did anything on those lines. But interestingly, it took Mahmood Khalil's arrest for the university to now, on the 12th of March, reveal a new anti-doxing and online harassment policy. So it just goes to show that the extent to which something had to happen for the university to actually take this problem as seriously as they should have taken it from day one.

Over the past year and a half, pro-Palestine protesters have been disproportionately and inordinately doxxed. It took Mahmood Khalil's arrest for the university to come up with a new anti-doxxing and online harassment policy. And that speaks volumes of what Mahmood was indicating in his email to the university.

So U.S. President Donald Trump celebrated Mahmoud's arrest and said that this is the first of many to come. There's also a list going around with five other names of students who have been deemed to be supporting, quote, pro-terror organizations at Columbia. Are people there preparing for more arrests? I was a student journalist last year during the time of the encampments. I was studying at Columbia's journalism school. Over the past year and a half,

At no point have I seen students more worried about their safety and over threats of deportation than I see them now. So this is significant because, yes, there were arrests that took place under the Biden administration, and the Biden administration was not kind to these pro-Palestine protesters in any measure. However, the threats that the students perceive now are immense.

It's sort of this cloak hanging over the campus of worry, of concern. This is happening at a time when $400 million of federal funding have been slashed at Colombia. And this, however, is still not being able to completely suppress or wipe out activism and protests for Palestinian people, but also for Mahmoud Khalil now.

There are large protests being conducted within campus and outside campus. There are large numbers of Jewish students. There are large numbers of Muslim students. There are large numbers of students beyond these religions from different nationalities, Arab, non-Arab, Palestinian, non-Palestinian, who are coming together despite these ever-increasing threats to their freedom of speech and now their physical safety. I mean, many people see him as a hero now.

That's what happens when authoritarian regimes crack down on protesters, that the protesters they crack down on eventually become lionized and become far bigger in stature than the administration would have liked in the first place. We've seen this happen over history and in countries across the world. And it's happening in the United States right now with Mahmoud Khalil.

Finally, Magnaud, you were an international student, but you're still connected with the university and obviously reporting on what's happening there. On a personal level, are you at all worried that just reporting on this topic could get you in trouble as well? That Marco Rubio himself might decide one day that your reporting has an adverse foreign policy consequence? I only ask because of the climate of fear is just so high on campus now.

Look, I don't mean to say this in any way to valorize myself because I think we're doing our job. But the fact is that I really don't care. If reporting the truth is to get me deported, then they can deport me.

But we're going to do stories that matter and speak truth to power. That's what we studied. That's what we've learned. That's what I've done as a journalist in my time in India covering far-right Hindutva nationalism. And that's what I'm going to continue to do here. And if there are actions against me for speaking the truth or against anyone for speaking the truth, I don't think that's going to stop journalists from doing so. Meghna Bose, thank you very much for coming on The Take. Thank you, Fabi. And that's The Take.

This episode was produced by Ashish Malhotra, Sonia Bagat, and Tamera Kandaker. With Philip Llanos, Spencer Klein, Hannah Shokir, Melanie Marich, Rimas Al-Hawari, Khaled Sultan, and me, Kevin Hurtin. It was edited by Alexandra Locke.

Our sound designers, Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abusalah and Mohanad Almelhem. Alexandra Locke is the Take's executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. We'll be back tomorrow.