The February meeting was scheduled as Espaillat, a fifth-term incumbent, was trying to improve his relationship with Khalil while a challenger against him gained steam. Darializa Avila Chevalier, an organizer from the Columbia University student encampments and a friend of Khalil’s, was at the time considered a long-shot challenger for the 13th Congressional District seat. But she was on her way to outraising Espaillat that quarter, and outside groups that anticipated a tough race for the incumbent had already started pouring money to bolster his campaign.

Espaillat now faces an unexpectedly heated battle to keep his House seat in New York’s primary election on Tuesday. Avila Chevalier is campaigning on criticizing Espaillat’s close ties to the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — whose super PAC gave $650,000 to a group backing Espaillat last month — and what she says was his reticence to go after ICE when the Trump administration first began targeting pro-Palestine students.

Outside groups have poured millions of dollars into the race — most of it, a reported almost $7 million, in support of Espaillat. Nearly $2 million has come in support of Avila Chevalier, most of it from the new pro-Palestine super PAC American Priorities and Justice Democrats PAC. 

The race has aggravated an already strained relationship between progressive New York Democrats and an emboldened movement to their left, pitting the overwhelmingly popular democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani against leaders once considered progressive stalwarts and now finding themselves lumped in with the establishment. Mamdani has bucked the preferences of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — poised to become House speaker if the Democrats take the House in November — and retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who endorsed Mamdani early in his mayoral primary campaign and helped guide progressive ideas into New York’s mainstream for more than 30 years in Congress. Espaillat, sworn in to the House in 2017, is the longest-serving incumbent Democrat in New York facing a serious challenger on Tuesday.

Avila Chevalier has pointed to Khalil’s detention as a key inspiration for her decision to run. On the campaign trail, she has slammed Espaillat for what she frames as a lacking response to the activist’s detention and targeting by the Trump administration for the better part of a year. 

“Mahmoud’s case is really emblematic of a lot of what’s wrong with our system,” she told The Intercept. She pointed to Espaillat’s refusal to meet with Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, as a continuation of his failure to address suppression of speech on Palestine in his district happening at Columbia and on the campuses of the City University of New York. “The fact that it was happening to a Palestinian man advocating for an end to the genocide of his people really highlights how all of this converges.”

In recent debates, Espaillat has responded to barbs from Avila Chevalier over his handling of the Khalil case by congratulating her for her work to assist his family and citing his meeting with Khalil and his attorneys in February. That month, when another Columbia student was detained on campus by ICE, Espaillat said the school needed to beef up its protections for students and described the Trump administration’s actions as “lawless,” calling on them to stop immediately. 

Espaillat’s campaign did not provide comment for this story.

According to a member of his legal team present at the February meeting, the goal for Khalil was to use the meeting to allow the former organizer of the pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia University to vent his frustration that Espaillat had ignored multiple pleas to meet with Abdalla. A slew of progressive members from other districts, including Velázquez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., had launched efforts to free Khalil and support family in the immediate aftermath of the arrest. Several visited him in detention in Louisiana. But when Khalil’s legal and advocacy team asked Espaillat to meet with Abdalla, they never heard back, according to two people with knowledge of the events who spoke to The Intercept. 

“When one of Espaillat’s constituents was kidnapped from his home by Trump’s ICE, he failed to take any action to protect or stand up for Mahmoud Khalil and his safety,” said Amira Hassan, political director for PAL PAC, another pro-Palestine political action committee backing Avila Chevalier. PAL PAC is affiliated with the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, which has supported Khalil since his arrest.

“He did not meet with Mr. Mahmoud Khalil or his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, until after he was released from ICE detention,” Hassan said. “Why was it that he chose to abandon his constituents? Was it because he was more invested in serving the interests of his AIPAC donors who spearheaded the campaigns attacking students like Mahmoud Kahlil who were protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza?”

Velázquez, Espaillat’s retiring colleague, was one of 14 House Democrats who signed a letter to former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem three days after Khalil’s arrest demanding his immediate release. She was joined by Tlaib; Ilhan Omar D-Minn.; Summer Lee, D-Pa.; and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass. Another letter the same day included Velázquez and more than two dozen other New York state and city politicians, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, then-New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, and State Assembly Member Claire Valdez. 

Espaillat wasn’t among them.

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But Velázquez has since sided with Espaillat in an effort to hold onto power in key New York congressional races. She was upset with Mamdani for endorsing Valdez, another democratic socialist, for the 7th Congressional District seat Velázquez is vacating over Reynoso, her handpicked successor.

The mayor further angered Velázquez and Espaillat when he endorsed Avila Chevalier, after he had reportedly promised Espaillat he would endorse him after the congressman backed the mayor in the general mayoral election. Espaillat had at first backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo but switched his support to Mamdani after he won the Democratic mayoral primary last summer.

Espaillat has said Avila Chevalier’s campaign has misrepresented his record on ICE by saying he cooperated with the agency and voted to fund it. His campaign has touted his work to help immigrants build political power in New York and fight the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant communities. He has conducted oversight visits at ICE facilities and supported detainees who held a hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions at a New Jersey detention center.

After a December visit to an ICE facility at Federal Plaza in New York with Rep. Dan Goldman — who is facing his own powerful challenger from the left in Brad Lander — Espaillat said President Donald Trump was creating a humanitarian crisis. “The White House’s unhinged expectations are forcing DHS officials to cut corners,” he said. “This is not how America should enforce its laws.” 

While Avila Chevalier has called to abolish ICE, Espaillat, who was previously an undocumented immigrant and built his political career on helping to expand Latino power among Democrats in New York, has said ICE should be “dismantled” and voted against funding the agency in January. Espaillat previously co-sponsored a bill in 2018 to dissolve the agency and transfer its “critical functions” to other agencies, but he has also voted with most Democrats to fund ICE in appropriations bills over his time in Congress.

At the time of Khalil’s arrest, in response to questions from The Intercept, Espaillat said that he expected Trump’s Department of Justice “to work within the confines of the law and that due process is guaranteed to him and his family.” 

During the February meeting, Espaillat offered to do whatever he could to help Khalil and his family. By that point, after Khalil had already been secretly moved to a detention facility in Louisiana and later released from ICE custody after three months, during which he missed the birth of his son, there was not much Espaillat’s office could do except press the Trump administration to drop the charges. 

No help for Khalil materialized after the offer, according to one person present at the meeting. Abdalla, his wife, has since appeared in an ad for Avila Chevalier.

Also running on Tuesday are Oscar Romero, chief information officer of the NYC Civic Engagement Commission, and Theo Chino-Tavarez, a socialist and computer engineer. Espaillat is the top fundraiser, with $2.6 million so far. Avila Chevalier has raised just over $1.1 million, a haul that slowed after an eye-popping first quarter that made her the only primary challenger that quarter to outraise an incumbent in New York City. 

“This election is much bigger than this primary, it is much bigger than this seat, it is much bigger than this political moment,” Avila Chevalier said. “This campaign needs to be a vehicle to engage people in their own politics, in their own government, and if we build this coalition right, people will be able to find their political home as a result.”

The post Rep. Adriano Espaillat Was Slow to Help Mahmoud Khalil. It Could Cost Him His Seat. appeared first on The Intercept.

In short, Khalil is safe from further detention — for about a month and a half, his legal team told The Intercept. Khalil is fighting two separate legal battles: one in federal court, and the second in immigration court.

“We understand there’s a lot of concern about whether ICE can go pick him up again right now,” said Brett Max Kaufman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union and member of Khalil’s legal team. “Before the appeals process is over, that cannot happen.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Khalil, a green card holder, at his New York apartment in March and quickly flew him to a Louisiana detention center. He spent the next three months there while the government sought to deport him, missing the birth of his child.

Khalil was released in June after New Jersey District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that the Trump administration’s detention of Khalil was likely illegal and violated his First Amendment rights. As a graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil had been a vocal participant in student activism opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza — putting a target on his back for the Trump administration, which has sought to crush advocacy for Palestine under the guise of combating antisemitism.

On Thursday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which rules on appeals in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, overturned the New Jersey federal court’s release order in a split 2–1 decision. The two majority opinion judges — appointees of Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump — stated the lower court didn’t have jurisdiction over the free speech claims case, while the dissenting judge, a Biden appointee, argued it did and Khalil’s release should hold. 

Even though the appeals court tossed the order that bailed Khalil out of detention, the decision does not immediately go into effect, according to court rules.

Thursday’s decision goes into effect in 45 days, at which point Khalil would again be exposed to detention. Before that deadline, Khalil can appeal the 3rd Circuit’s recent decision. 

That doesn’t mean Thursday’s decision isn’t alarming, Kaufman said — both for Khalil personally and for free speech rights overall.

The decision essentially endorses the idea that even if someone’s free speech rights were violated, Kaufman added, the government can still detain and seek to deport them for their activism, making them wait in detention as they challenge their case in immigration court.

“That just defeats the entire purpose of the First Amendment,” Kaufman said. “If this decision stands, the government might be able to snatch you up for your speech and put you in detention for years.”

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In a statement released by the ACLU on Thursday, Khalil called the ruling “deeply disappointing” but reaffirmed his commitment to activism for Palestinian rights.

“The door may have been opened for potential re-detainment down the line, but it has not closed our commitment to Palestine and to justice and accountability,” he said. “I will continue to fight, through every legal avenue and with every ounce of determination, until my rights, and the rights of others like me, are fully protected.”

If Khalil pursues another appeal, it would allow all 14 judges — rather than the customary three — on the appeals court to weigh in on the case and possibly reverse Thursday’s decision, potentially reviving Khalil’s release order. 

Thursday’s appeals court decision also allows the Trump administration to resume its separate fight to get Khalil deported in immigration court. There, Trump administration attorneys have used an obscure immigration policy to argue Khalil’s activism for Palestine has adverse consequences for U.S. foreign policy. The government has claimed Khalil has ties to the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which attorneys assert is false. Trump attorneys have also accused Khalil of lying on his green card application.

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In April, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that the government does have grounds to deport Khalil, but attorneys appealed, and the decision which is now being reviewed by the Board of Immigration appeals. If the board, known as the BIA, sides with Khalil, the Trump administration’s immigration case against him would end. 

If the board sides with the government, upholding the immigration removal, Khalil could pursue an additional appeal in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs decisions in Louisiana. Such a process may take months to play out. Appeals courts, in such immigration cases, can also offer a stay, halting the government’s deportation order, even after a BIA decision.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a prominent ally of Khalil’s, condemned the court’s ruling in a statement on Thursday.

“Last year’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was more than just a chilling act of political repression, it was an attack on all of our constitutional rights,” Mamdani wrote on X. “Now, as the crackdown on pro-Palestinian free speech continues, Mahmoud is being threatened with rearrest. Mahmoud is free—and must remain free.”

Other pro-Palestinian activists detained by the Trump administration, such as former Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who is also a green card holder, and Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, are awaiting their appeals. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing similar arguments for Mahdawi and Öztürk, who were both released last year after federal judges also ruled their constitutional rights were violated. 

Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who was arrested in 2024 while protesting outside Columbia University and was detained in March by the Trump administration, remains in immigration detention in Texas. The government continues to allege she also has ties with Hamas, which she continues to refute in court.

The post Despite Court Ruling, ICE Can’t Detain Mahmoud Khalil — For Now appeared first on The Intercept.

Despite being one of the most recognizable faces among the activists, however, Mahmoud Khalil still faces possible re-detention and deportation to Algeria, a country he’s never lived in.

Now, on the heels of a federal court ruling that delivered a blow to his case, Khalil is mounting a new fight in immigration court, where he is appealing his deportation order.

Earlier this month, Khalil and his legal team requested that the government move the case out of Louisiana, the conservative district where he was held for three months. The legal team asked the court to send the case back to New York, where Khalil was initially detained and where he lives with his wife, Noor Abdalla, and their 10-month-old son Dean, who was born when Khalil was incarcerated.

If they’re successful, the legal team plans to submit new evidence to show the government’s retaliation against Khalil in hopes of dismissing his deportation case, according to the February 13 motion exclusively obtained by The Intercept. The motion, filed in immigration court, lays out the inequities of how Khalil’s deportation proceedings were handled last year by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

Khalil’s attorneys hope to use a raft of government documents that have become public since his initial hearings — documents that emerged after Louisiana courts denied him access to the materials in discovery.

“This is the bare minimum that immigration courts should do, to look at the evidence,” Khalil told The Intercept. “And it’s clear by the government’s statements, by ICE and DHS conduct, that these were brought in retaliation to our freedom of speech.”

Among the documents is a newly unsealed March 2025 legal memo from the Department of Homeland Security that shows the Trump administration lacked evidence to support its case.

In addition to the documents, Khalil’s legal team drew comparisons to the cases of other student activists who have won relief from the courts. Unlike the cases of recent Tufts University graduate Rümeysa Öztürk and former Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, for instance, the immigration judge presiding over Khalil’s case has refused to rule on whether the Trump administration unconstitutionally targeted Khalil for his activism at Columbia while he was a graduate student.

Both Öztürk and Mahdawi relied in part on a landmark ruling in a separate case that the government violated the constitutional rights of pro-Palestinian activists, including Khalil, when it detained them last year. In late January, a judge dismissed Öztürk’s deportation case and cited the September ruling. Just last week, Mahdawi beat his own deportation case after the judge said the government failed to certify the document it used to detain the activist.

“At least some part of this immigration system is still functioning fairly,” said Khalil, whose legal team hopes to add to the string of victories.

The Khalil Exception

For nearly a year, the Trump administration has attempted to make an example out of Khalil as part of its harsh crackdown on advocacy for Palestinian rights. ICE agents detained Khalil last March at his New York City home and whisked him away to Louisiana.

Immigration detainees are frequently rushed to Louisiana; critics of the transfers say they serve to isolate immigrants from loved ones and communities that could aid them, and also takes advantage of more conservative judges who could be friendlier to administration positions. Yet Khalil’s attorneys said the swift nature of the transfer, flying him out of New York within several hours of his detention, was especially punitive.

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At the time of his detention and transfer, the Trump administration said Khalil should be deported because his campus activism harmed U.S. foreign policy, justifying the position by conflating his advocacy for Palestine with support for Hamas and antisemitism. The government later added a charge of immigration fraud to Khalil’s case.

Khalil and his legal team have long argued the Trump administration’s case against him was never about immigration, but about silencing Israel’s critics. That argument was never considered by Judge Jamee Comans, who declined to consider Khalil’s free speech claims.

Comans also denied Khalil’s application for a waiver that would create another path toward remaining the country; usually the waiver applications are reviewed in a hearing, Khalil’s lawyers said, but Comans denied Khalil’s outright.

Comans upheld the Trump administration’s claims in the case and twice last year ordered Khalil’s deportation.

In the February 13 filing, Khalil’s attorneys said the rejection of his waiver was part of the government’s relation for protected speech, an opinion backed up by a declaration from a former immigration judge. Khalil’s legal team said it was “unprecedented” for a judge to deny a detainee the opportunity to make a case for a violation of free speech rights.

“The whole case has been an example of abnormal, from Mahmoud’s arrest until now,” said Johnny Sidonis, a head attorney on Khalil’s immigration legal team. “If this evidence had been available to us and set forth in the record immigration court, it would have affected the outcome of the case.”

In December, Comans, the Louisiana judge, was promoted to an acting assistant director position in the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Comans could not be reached for comment, but her office said it does not comment on immigration judge decisions or active cases. (The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.)

Khalil’s lawyers now hope to make the newly unsealed Homeland Security memo a major piece of their case. Drafted the day of Khalil’s detention, the memo was unsealed by a federal court in Massachusetts in late January as a part of litigation brought by The Intercept and other news outlets. The Trump administration acknowledged in the document that it lacked evidence to support its deportation case against Khalil beyond the rarely used foreign policy grounds provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The government said in the memo that it anticipated legal blowback.

A week after Khalil’s detention and after his initial lawsuit, the government added the immigration fraud charge to the docket, accusing Khalil of leaving information about his internship for a United Nations agency and membership in a pro-Palestine Columbia group off his 2024 green card application.

The new motion in Khalil’s case accuses the government of adding the second charge because the foreign policy-related “charge would not pass constitutional muster and therefore the government needed another reason to pursue Mr. Khalil’s removal, no matter how meritless and tenuous it would be to do so, due to its retaliatory animus.”

“I Could Be Deported Any Day”

Khalil’s legal fight is being waged in two courts: in federal court, where the adverse ruling came from on January 15, and in immigration court.

In immigration court, the Department of Homeland Security has until March 23 to file its response to Khalil’s filing at the immigration appeals board, after which the board will render its decision. And Khalil already has an ongoing case against his detention in federal court.

Last month, a panel of appeals court judges overturned a lower court’s order to release Khalil based on his First Amendment rights, saying the lower court doesn’t have jurisdiction over free speech aspects of the case. Khalil has until March 31 to appeal that ruling.

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In the meantime, Khalil has remained free from detention since last June, but he seldom gone outside since the federal appeals court ruling last month. A week after the ruling, an ICE spokesperson said the Trump administration was making plans to deport Khalil to Algeria.

Planning a future with his family is bogged down in uncertainty, he said. Before signing the lease to their new apartment, the first question he asked the landlord was: “What if I break the lease prematurely?”

“I can’t buy any piece of furniture,” Khalil said, “because I could be deported any day.”

Despite the stress of his possible deportation and security risks, Khalil has continued his advocacy for Palestinian rights and that of others to speak out, giving speeches at events and meeting with members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

He has also remained in contact with Öztürk, Mahdawi, and Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri, who was also detained for his pro-Palestine advocacy, as well as Leqaa Kordia, the last person who remains jailed after participating in the Columbia protests.

For Khalil, continuing to speak out, despite security risks, is his way of showing he will not be intimidated into giving what the Trump administration wanted: his silence.

“The administration wanted to make an example out of me,” Khalil said. “And this is the way that I’m making an example of this administration.”

The post Pro-Palestine International Students Have Won in Court. Why Hasn’t Mahmoud Khalil Won His Freedom? appeared first on The Intercept.

Even before federal immigration agents descended on communities around the country, killing immigrants and protesters, unmarked agents were abducting students who had voiced criticisms of Israel. 

Mahmoud Khalil was the first. After federal agents detained him at his alma mater, Columbia University, he spent more than 100 days in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Louisiana. It’s been over a year since he was released and returned to live with his family in New York City. The Trump administration is still trying to deport him. 

“Part of why I’m doing this right now rather than waiting 10 years or 20 years is because what’s happening now in ICE detention is a stain on the U.S. conscience,” Khalil tells The Intercept Briefing. “I don’t want to look back in 20 years and reckon with what’s happening. I want to stop the killing now. I want to stop the disappearances now. I want to stop the cruelty now.”

This week on the podcast, Khalil speaks with host Akela Lacy about what he’s learned about how he became President Donald Trump’s top target, the role Columbia University played in that campaign, and his new book, “No Land to Stand On,” which chronicles Khalil’s experience in ICE detention, missing the birth of his first child, his ongoing saga to stay in the U.S. with his family, and more.

“It’s been so difficult just to have that conversation with my wife Noor about what would happen,” Khalil says. “What are we doing? Is it worth the fight? Should we just leave? But to me, this fight isn’t only about whether I get to stay in this country.”

“It’s about whether anyone — whether they are citizens or non-citizens — are able to speak out against government policies and against the support of Israel in this country. It goes down to a very basic thing: If they are able to deport someone for their views on Palestine, they would be able to deport anyone on their views, whether it is pro-Palestine or pro-Israel or anything.”

For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

Transcript

Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter at The Intercept.

It’s been almost three years since the October 7 attacks in Israel that preceded the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In that time, Israel has destroyed an entire region, killed more than 70,000 people and injured scores more, launched attacks on surrounding countries, and drawn the U.S. into a full-blown war with Iran. 

Over the last three years, at home in the U.S., something else fundamentally shattered. If anything is different now, it’s the honesty of it all. Free speech, civil rights, and equal protection under the law — of course, with all the appropriate exceptions. 

What started as a bipartisan commitment to suppressing criticism of Israel led to flagrant abductions of pro-Palestine students by unmarked immigration agents. 

Since the crackdown on students escalated in the early months of Trump’s second term, ICE’s war has spread even further. 

Since Trump reentered the White House, ICE has detained more than half a million people and says it’s deported almost twice that. More people are dying in ICE custody or at the hands of federal agents, who have killed at least eight people since January 2025, including two protesters in Minneapolis. 

Our guest today lives at this nexus: how the siege on Gaza fueled a reckoning at home and fused America’s anti-immigrant push with its battle over speech on Palestine. 

Mahmoud Khalil was the first person taken by ICE over student activism for Palestine last year. Khalil, who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, fled the country at 18. He later moved to the U.S. to attend graduate school at Columbia University, where he emerged as a leader during student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza. After being released from ICE detention last year, Khalil returned to living in New York, where he continues to fight against the threat of deportation. He joins me now. 

Mahmoud Khalil, welcome to The Intercept Briefing. 

Mahmoud Khalil: Thank you so much for having me.

AL: To start, I want to ask about your family. You were being held at a remote ICE detention center in Louisiana when your son, Deen, was born last year. How is Deen now? 

MK: He’s a wonderful, wild 17-month-old. So he’s walking all over now, and it just feels so rewarding really to have him in our life right now, especially in a very difficult moment in our family.

I get so much inspiration from him and that pushes me to continue to work because this is not only about my family. It’s a story of so many families who this administration separated and inflicted violence upon them. It’s also a story of so many Palestinian families in Palestine whose fathers are in Israeli prisons [who] can’t meet their families, or even the ones in Gaza who are disappeared right now.

AL: I’m sure you and Noor talk about this, how you will tell Deen your story, and when. What are those conversations like?

MK: I try to push it as much as possible because usually you tell a story that already happened, but my story is still happening. Every day there’s something new.

And that’s what made writing the book difficult for me, because usually you write a memoir about a memory about something that has already happened to you. While, to me, I am now living it. So how would I write about it? That was like so difficult for me.

The same way about telling Deen about it: Would it be a happy story or a sad story? Would it be a story that, in fact, the legal system stood up for the unlawful detention of his father and the attempts to deport him — or it did not? Is it that the people in this country advocated for his father and the rights of so many other people in this country — or not? That’s still to be told, so I don’t want to really jump to conclusions at all. 

Part of why I’m doing this right now, rather than waiting 10 years or 20 years, is because what’s happening now in ICE detention is a stain on the U.S. conscience. So is the Palestine exception: the fact that freedom of speech, rule of law, basic dignities are afforded to everyone except for Palestinians. I don’t want to look back in 20 years and reckon with what’s happening. I want to stop the killing now. I want to stop the disappearances now. I want to stop the cruelty now.

AL: You were released from ICE detention last summer. What have the last 16 months in your life been like? 

MK: It’s been a saga with courts but also just as a family, with a new family now, like trying to really live our life. Try to build our future in a country that at least promised me some sort of stability and safety after living in Syria and then in Lebanon. So it’s been difficult to find that stability and that permanence in our lives. It is a fight to me, like it’s been since then.

It’s been so difficult, of course, just to have that conversation with Noor, my wife Noor, about what would happen. What are we doing? Is it worth the fight? Should we just, like, leave? But to me, this fight isn’t only about whether I get to stay in this country. It’s also about whether those speaking out for Palestine have the right to do so without being punished by the administration or by the government, whether it’s the Trump administration or another. So that’s why I feel like it’s a bigger fight than just about me or about our family.

But at the end of the day, we are people. I want to go to Bryant Park and just watch the movies there, but I can’t do that easily. There’s several precautions I have to do to be able to actually do this very normal activity that any couple would do on a normal day. But it is the cost, unfortunately, that was imposed upon me by ICE and the Trump administration.

AL: To your point, this is something that’s happening at multiple levels. And you write in the book that you were given the option to “self-deport” — to where, we don’t know. But you say that you felt like if you did that, you wouldn’t just be succumbing to this false smear campaign, but you would be giving the federal government the blueprint for how to silence dissent. You also talk about this being a story about the horrors of the broader immigration detention system in the United States.

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As of early July, more than 65,000 people are currently being held in immigration detention. You write in your book about your experience in Louisiana at LaSalle and the relationships you built with other people being held there, trading noodles. What was that like for you? You talk a lot about the psychological effects of some of the things: constant bright lights so you can’t sleep, constant freezing cold air. Can you describe the conditions of the facility that you were in?

MK: As I’ve mentioned, what’s happening behind ICE detention walls is a stain on the U.S. conscience. The fact that you have over 65,000 people at any moment detained in what’s called civil detention. That’s what they call ICE detention. And there’s nothing civil about detention. Even if it was a five-star condition, it’s still detention. You’re still separated from your family.

But I met in ICE detention so many incredible fathers and workers who came here seeking safety only to be snatched off the street, only to be told that they are criminals and they do not belong here.

I remember, and I talk in my book about, Najib, a man who was snatched off his immigration hearing — leaving behind his wife battling cancer with four little kids. Or Alexander, who came here begging for safety, begging for a place to stay, only to be told, “No, you should be safe where you’re from.” And when he was deported, he got killed.

They want to make these conditions so bad you don’t fight for your case, because you can fight your case, but that could take six months to two years, three years.

AL: Even if you win.

MK: Even if you win. That’s the fact. That’s how they weaponize the immigration system against you. Even if you win, you lose. They can appeal multiple times — not once or twice. Because it’s a kangaroo court. The system is so favorable to the administration, and the administration can change at any time.

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That’s why you rarely find now anyone who would win in the immigration system, because it’s fully controlled by this administration. To me, it doesn’t make sense that you call it courts, or an impartial system, or a neutral system. It’s a very partial system to the administration.

That’s why they keep the lights on all the time. That’s why the temperature is down; it’s always cold. The food is pretty bad. You only have a thin blanket. Because they don’t want you to feel comfortable or have the basics to fight your case.

AL: You’re very much still in limbo. It’s been almost six months since the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a final ruling in one of your cases ordering your removal. Last week, that same body denied a request to reopen your case.

I know your team is looking at bringing your case to the Supreme Court. What’s the latest there? And when will you know if you have to leave the country? 

MK: So 18 months since my arrest, the Trump administration has never brought any piece of evidence that I committed any crime. They haven’t even charged me with any crime because they know they control the immigration system.

So now we’re appealing our case to the Supreme Court — an Article III court — to look into the matter. Because what the Trump administration’s trying until now is to prevent me from even looking into the merits of the case that they are bringing against me. What they are claiming is that this case is purely an immigration case, and only immigration judges should be able to look at it. Then if you want to go to a federal court, it should go to the 5th Circuit or the courts in Texas and Louisiana, who are pretty much favorable to the administration as well.

So they are trying to prevent a federal court from looking into this matter. We are now taking it to the Supreme Court because no government should have the power to detain someone without any independent judgment into it.

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Usually, the basics in criminal law are that you are innocent until proven guilty. What they’re trying to do now in immigration is the total opposite: You are guilty until you are proven innocent — but you might be deported before then. So it is a long fight. But once again, this fight is not only about my ability to stay in this country. It’s more than this.

It’s about whether anyone — whether they are citizens or non-citizens — are able to speak out against government policies and against the support of Israel in this country.

It goes down to a very basic thing: If they are able to deport someone for their views on Palestine, they would be able to deport anyone on their views, whether it is pro-Palestine or pro-Israel or anything.

AL: You and your team have expressed concerns that any ruling at the Supreme Court could backfire and further curtail the rights of pro-Palestine students. I wonder if you can you talk more about that? 

MK: For now, what we’re taking to the Supreme Court is only whether a federal court has jurisdiction to look into constitutional claims. For me, my constitutional claim is that the Trump administration wanted to deport me because of my activism on Palestine.

That’s what we’re bringing right now to the Supreme Court. This wouldn’t necessarily directly impact or have a larger impact on the movement as a whole. But already the government is doing everything in its power to chill the speech of whether students or citizens who are speaking out for Palestine. So what we’re trying is actually to prevent that. 

But the other part is, we seek accountability also from the public themselves. You don’t get accountability only through courts. You get accountability through the people who are now voting in progressive candidates into Congress who may be able to change the law.

That’s how I get accountability. I get accountability when I see that my book is out and people are reading what this administration tried to silence — that they want to make an example out of me, but they failed. That’s how we seek accountability. It’s not only from the court itself, because at the end of the day, people who create the law actually push for the law.

Because everything we got right now, the rights that American citizens or anyone on this land have, it was a product of a fight. Whether it’s a fight during the civil rights movement or the anti-slavery movement before then. It did not happen because a judge woke up and decided to do what’s right. It’s because, actually, people pushed for that to happen, and that’s my part of the fight right now.

AL: Mahmoud, you were not a random target. We know now that ICE took names from the pro-Israel doxing group Canary Mission to create a list of targets. Far-right pro-Israel groups like Canary Mission and the USA chapter of the militant, ultra-Zionist group Betar — considered by even the Anti-Defamation League as an anti-Muslim hate group — targeted you. 

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Betar later claimed credit for ICE’s abduction of you and other students and said it shared “thousands” of — we know now it was about 5,000 — names of pro-Palestine students with the Trump administration for further action. In the lead-up to your abduction, Betar targeted you by name, as did actors at your alma mater, Columbia University: another group, Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus at Columbia, and a professor, Shai Davidai, who called specifically for the Trump administration to deport and arrest you in the days leading up to that abduction and tagged Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

You write in the book: “What I did not anticipate was the U.S. government would one day consider the recommendation of hostile Zionist groups to target me, and then act on it.”

You sued for communications between these groups and the Trump administration. What more have you found out about how much they coordinated to target and arrest you and other students? 

MK: The targeting of me and other pro-Palestine protesters was written in a document called Project Esther that was produced by the Heritage Foundation. In there, what they said [was], for this plan to work, we need a friendly administration that would listen to us and work with us to implement it.

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That’s what happened after, because Stephen Miller was part of the Heritage Foundation or consulting for them, and then he became part of this administration, and actually worked on implementing this plan from A to Z.

From the discovery that the case in Massachusetts — AAUP v. Rubio— 

AL: This is the American Association of University Professors lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

MK: Secretary Rubio.

AL: Yes.

MK: A Reagan appointee found that the government officials conspired between themselves to deprive us from our freedom of speech. 

One of the ICE agents or one of the DHS agents testified that, “I’ve never seen something like this happen in our department, that such a request would come from really senior individuals in the administration.” So now what we are suing for is to see this communication between between these private actors, whether it is Canary Mission, the Heritage Foundation, Betar, and others as well, what we call Zionist hate groups, and these administrators, whether it’s Rubio, Stephen Miller, or DOJ, and the attorney general.

Because it was all in public. Betar went out and said, “We take credit for that. We actually communicated with the administration about that.” That’s what we know publicly. So now we’re asking for these communications. This case, we filed it in July, takes some time, but we’re hoping to really expose these networks that pushed anti-Palestinian bigotry to be institutionalized within the U.S. government itself.

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I got used to smear campaigns and doxing before my arrest. To me, that was part of an intimidation campaign to terrorize me not to speak out about Palestine.

To me, back then, the thought process was, usually they target your employer, they target your university, your father’s employers. I’m like, “Why would I work for anyone who doesn’t agree with my views on Palestine or who sees them as extreme? I don’t want to work for them.” 

You know, I never wore a mask [at Columbia] to hide my identity because the risk to me wasn’t that high. In Syria, I wore masks, because the risk back then was getting shot by [Bashar al] Assad forces or getting disappeared by mukhabarat, or intelligence officers.

I never imagined that what I fled from would happen to me in the U.S., the land of the free.

AL: After a quick break, more from Mahmoud Khalil, who has a new book, “No Land to Stand On.” We’ll be right back.

Welcome back. We’re speaking with Mahmoud Khalil, the first pro-Palestine student taken by ICE last year. 

You’ve filed three other lawsuits against the federal government and Columbia, and you are waiting for a response from the most recent suit which alleges a historical pattern of discrimination and retaliation against Palestinian students and pro-Palestinian activists, as well as a failure to address “coordinated harassment” against pro-Palestine students at your alma mater, the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

You’ve said that Columbia didn’t only ignore your concerns or documented harassment, but that the university facilitated your targeting and arrest by the Trump administration. 

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Of the suit, you said: “Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students.”

For listeners who might not be familiar with how Columbia handled protests against the genocide in Gaza, or its history trying to crush and later celebrate other student protest movements, against the Vietnam War or to divest from apartheid South Africa, can you tell us a little bit more about the role the school played here?

MK: When I applied to come to Columbia, I applied to come to an institution that had a long history of student activism, of standing up, at least the students of that institution standing up for human rights, whether it was during the ’60s and the civil rights movement or in the anti-apartheid South Africa, but also most recently, against private prisons, against fossil fuels. So it goes beyond that. 

That’s the institution I came to. But I was surprised — even before October 7 — the level of the anti-Palestinian racism on campus. For example, when we tried to bring Human Rights Watch to our school [in 2023], the school put so many hurdles in front of us to be able to host a 70-person event. I was shocked. Why would you prevent us from hosting such a reputable human rights organization to come and talk about apartheid in South Africa? The same happened when we tried to bring BDS — the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement — virtually on campus.

So on October 7, Columbia had a choice of being an example for other institutions around the country, of being a place where difficult conversations would be held, where they would stand up for human rights, where they would actually listen to their own students.

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Instead, Columbia employed surveillance systems against their own students, brutalized them. They called in the police about four times or more than four times in less than two years. Provided that, the last time Columbia called the police on campus was during the ’60s — like 60, 70 years ago.

They couldn’t contain the movement; they established a Gestapo-like office called the Office of the Institutional Equity that investigated every single Palestinian advocacy on campus, going after them with investigations. They brought private investigators; I remember being called by a private investigator that Columbia hired just to intimidate us.

AL: I spoke to students who got those calls, too, and they’re like, “What is this?”

MK: Exactly. Instead of just listening to their students, to their own students. These students were, most of them, 17 to 20 years old, watching a genocide happening in real time. 

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So that was the climate at Columbia. At the same time, they harbored these actors who were doxing us. As a Palestinian, I pleaded so many times to get protection from the university up until the day of my arrest.

AL: Right. The day before.

MK: The day before my arrest, March 7, I emailed the president. I knew she wouldn’t answer. But I wanted to keep the record because I emailed her before then in January when the first wave of doxing happened, and they did not do anything. 

A year later, when another student was kidnapped by ICE from Columbia, non-Palestinian, non-related-Palestinian student was detained by ICE — Columbia immediately issued a statement, immediately called lawyers, immediately called elected officials because that student did not have to do anything with Palestine.

I’m so glad that Columbia did that, but that’s what they should have done to me, to Mohsen [Mahdawi] and to Yunseo [Chung], to the other students who were targeted by ICE.

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But that’s again the Palestine exception in these institutions, where you have ideologues on the board of trustees of Columbia whose protection of Israel for them is much more important than protecting freedom of speech, than actually listening to their students, than the normal decency of just being board of trustees who have responsibility toward these institutions, but their loyalty was somewhere else.

AL: You’ve also mentioned future plans to sue other individuals at Columbia. In your suit against Trump, DHS, ICE and Rubio, your legal team cited reporting by me and my colleague Natasha Lennard on a network of faculty, alumni and other people at Columbia who were active in trying to target pro-Palestine students for deportation and arrest. You write in the book about coordination between Columbia students and faculty and some of these groups that smeared and doxed students. You write: “Those who fed our names to the machine continued to attend the school.”

What else have you learned about those people and those efforts? 

MK: I will continue to seek accountability until everyone who actively participated in me missing the birth of my child and me losing 104 days of my life, until they are all held accountable.

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I will not stop until I achieve that. I’m doing this up until now, with first suing the federal government, then the federal government and private actors. And the private actors also included some of the Columbia actors who were feeding our names to Canary Mission.

Because we have to think about this — Canary Mission and Betar, or the Heritage Foundation — they did not have people on the ground. The people on the ground were Columbia’s own students and faculty, who were not hiding that they were doxing us.

AL: They were sending billboard trucks all over New York.

MK: Exactly. So we got records about communication between some of the students at Columbia and Leo Terrell, the chief of the antisemitism task force in the DOJ, pushing them to target us, but also providing talking points that we later saw on Terrell’s own social media.

So that network goes beyond just random actors. It was a very coordinated effort to demonize our movement, to vilify the student movement that was rooted in human rights and equality and dignity. That’s why so many students joined this movement, not only Palestinians.

Palestinians at Columbia were barely 20, 30 students. But the movement that was built, it was built by Black students, by Asian students, by Jewish students. The coalition that was created as well, it had groups ranging from dancing groups, cultural groups, to the Young Democrats.

More than 100 groups joined together to call for Palestinian freedom, to call for the end of Columbia’s complicity in supporting Israel.

AL: Mahmoud, you mentioned this already, the logic of exception regarding Palestine. You write in the book about the logic of exception regarding Palestine, the idea that only certain categories of Palestinians are deserving of rights. You talk about how you’ve internalized that in some ways as well. 

This comes up in what I’ve noticed as attempts, even by well-meaning people, to paint you as “one of the good ones” among university students that have been portrayed otherwise, as an unruly mass of student protesters on a rampage in protesting this genocide. There was a similar effort around your Columbia colleague Mohsen Mahdawi, who was also targeted and abducted by ICE for his pro-Palestine activism. 

During the Columbia encampments, you were active in the protests, and you also worked as a negotiator between protesters and university administrators, one of whom told the New Yorker that you stood out from other protesters for your levelheadedness, which I found very interesting.

What is the effect of trying to separate you from the rest of the pack as the “right” kind of protester”? How do you overcome that?

MK: That really enraged me that you have to be a perfect victim to be worthy of people’s sympathy, to be worthy of the rule of law. Because what we protested is a genocide. That’s what we protested, and that’s the right thing to do. It shouldn’t be criminalized. Unfortunately, we internalized that. 

I talk a little bit about how I myself would highlight the numbers of women and children just to appeal to more people that like, “Look, young women and children are being killed by Israel.” But what about the men? Because that’s the level of the dehumanization of Palestinians in this country, that it only took the Trump administration to mention my name as “Mahmoud Khalil” and Palestinian for people to paint a certain image of me.

But in reality, I’m a Palestinian who believes in a free Palestine, where everyone from the river to the sea deserves safety, dignity, and freedom.

Just like the fact that I had to be that perfect victim. Because I’m not perfect. No one is perfect. Palestinians are, you know —

AL: Human. 

MK: Humans, the same as any other, any other nation. We have our aspirations. We have our culture. We have our deficiencies. We’re not out of this planet. But yet the media insists on treating Palestinians on a different standard, when they ask me about condemning or not condemning all of that, I’m like, you’re not interested in my views about Hamas. 

If you’re interested about my views about Hamas, you would ask me what are my views about Hamas, or a different question. But they use that question as a litmus test: If you say yes, then maybe you are a human worthy of talking to. If not, then you are that villain that this administration is talking about. That’s why we refuse the premise of the question as a whole. It’s not about the question itself. The whole premise of the question we refuse. 

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I think it’s for Americans to reckon with why we are here, why we are treating Palestinian stories differently from any other story. Whether it’s the Zionist lobby that for tens of years has fed this hate, whether it’s the media itself or Hollywood or just the institutions themselves that fed that hate and fed the image of the Palestinian as violent, rather than just a human being.

Or recently just how, it’s not only the Trump administration. It’s before them, the Biden administration, before them, the Obama administration. It goes back to every administration this country had dehumanizing Palestinians. Because Trump wouldn’t have had the power to do what he did with me were it not for what Colombia portrayed or said about the movement, or the Biden administration as well. 

AL: And as we’ve written about a lot at The Intercept the beginning of this crackdown on campuses started under Biden.

MK: Absolutely.

AL: I want to deviate quickly just because you mentioned this question, and I had written a question that I wasn’t sure we would have time to get to about being asked about Hamas because this comes up in The New Yorker article, and I was curious what you thought of how — I don’t know if you read the latest one from last month.

MK: The profile?

AL: Yeah. Because I was curious about how it was framed, because he says that you push back on the framing of the question, right? He asked you about your views on Hamas and that you protested the premise of the question. And then it said what your explanation was. But I thought it was interesting to print your defense of why you reject the premise, but still print your answer to the question.

MK: To me, Hamas is a political faction that has a military wing that got most of its popularity because of the failures of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PLO, in bringing peace after the Oslo Accords, where a lot of Palestinians were excited about the prospects of peace.

But when they saw that Israel is undermining any prospects of a Palestinian state, a lot of Palestinians turned to Hamas as that resistance movement that may bring something.

And as I explain in my book, Palestinians supported Hamas not because of ideological reasons as much as because they wanted a way forward. For me, I’m against all Palestinian political factions because not one of them — whether it’s Hamas, Fatah, or PFLP — rose up to the aspirations of the Palestinian people, unfortunately.

That’s why I’m a strong believer in international law. I’m a strong believer in the fact that Palestinians have the right of self-determination, have the right to resist under international law, and have the right to really tell the world what they want. That’s what I want my answer about such a questions to be. 

AL: That’s not what people want to hear. 

MK: Yeah, exactly. They want just a yes or no, it’s a black and white.

I can’t tell people how to resist. That’s from being in the United States. For someone who’s going through bombardment, who’s going through checkpoints, whose house is being raided at night by the Israeli army, who the drones are above their heads all the time — I can’t, from here, tell them how to resist.

But for me, I’m a firm believer of international law, and that’s how I see the way forward. Again, I’m a Palestinian. I believe in a free Palestine, where everyone, from the river to the sea, have the right to live with dignity, with justice, with freedom, with equality. That’s what we’re asking for.

AL: This fight, when it comes down to it, is fundamentally over First Amendment rights for you and everyone in this country and the fight for freedom in Palestine.

A new report from Uncivil, a consortium of scholars and researchers, audited five years, going back to 2020, of publicly listed grants to 77 university centers, initiatives, and nonprofits doing “civility” work to promote pluralism and viewpoint diversity. The group found that almost all of the top funders, responsible for $82 million in grants, were groups and foundations deeply invested in conservative and/or “pro-Israel” networks. 

Unsurprisingly, these funders donated more to groups that mirrored and promoted their viewpoints over progressive groups by a ratio of more than 6 to 1. Just to underscore this point, the top five grantees who have received funding for “civility discourse” work include: Turning Point USA, the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council — which does model bills for state legislatures — the Anti-Defamation League, and Project Veritas. This is essentially a list of the most right-wing groups in the country at the moment. The top groups. 

While many of those groups present this civility discourse as politically neutral, Uncivil found that 70 percent of the campuses they looked at had been accused of suppressing pro-Palestine speech. This is now roughly a $200-million-a-year industry. 

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In the book, you talk about how this movement at Columbia backfired: in trying to suspend or shut down pro-Palestine groups, it ended up creating a 100 or more new pro-Palestine groups.

But given how strong this “civility discourse” push still is, where do you see the student Palestine solidarity movement going from here? 

MK: The fact that the president of the United States felt the need to go after a random student means that this movement changed the mainstream, means that we are winning. Otherwise, they would leave it to, I would say, covert racism and discrimination because it was always happening at Columbia, as I’ve mentioned these attacks against Palestine. But it wasn’t very obvious. Because they did not need to.

I don’t think there’s an amount of money that would stop the Palestine movement for freedom, because we can see that people now feel betrayed by their institutions, feel betrayed by their representatives, feel betrayed by the establishment that hid from them the endless support to Israel.

Because now if you’re a politician who’s supporting Palestine, that means you’re also good on other things. Because a lot of people, Palestine may not be their single issue or their first. But if you’re good on Palestine, that means you are good on other things.

That means that you are not bought by corporations and by AIPAC and by the oligarchs. That’s how it came right now. That’s why in Zohran’s race —

AL: Zohran Mamdani, New York City mayor. 

MK: Tens of millions were spent against him, and Abdul El-Sayed, the Senate candidate, the Democratic candidate, also over $60 million were spent against him, and still he won [the primary]. But that doesn’t mean to me that we should stop. That means that we should continue until that dome breaks. And it will break. Sooner or later, it will break.

We need change. We need to stop sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, or any arms to Israel, or anything to Israel, really. Israel should be isolated, should be the pariah state that it is. That’s why I keep pushing now. I keep working on advocating for Palestine. That this did not stop. The genocide’s still happening. Every day there is a Palestinian getting killed by Israel, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank. 

But also we must acknowledge the violence that was inflicted upon students, upon this movement in this country. It’s not only universities that suspended and expelled these students, not only that the police also brutalized their students, but you have a big attack on this movement that’s happening across the country, whether from the federal government itself. But you can see across the country, whether it is in the South or even small counties also still trying to attack this movement.

My position as a Palestinian is, how can we really face this level of violence or this level of coordinated and well-funded attacks against the movement?

AL: Though the Trump administration has claimed repeatedly that your case is not about free speech or the First Amendment, they have not necessarily been arguing that your speech wasn’t constitutionally protected or that you are here illegally. Just to be clear, for anyone who’s confused, you are a green card holder, a lawful permanent resident. 

We’ve been talking about this New Yorker piece, as Andrew Marantz wrote last month. The government is arguing that none of those things — the legality of your actions, or your presence here — outweigh Trump’s power to detain you on whatever grounds it sees fit. In this case, claiming that your presence is a threat to American foreign policy interests.

You’ve talked about this fundamental contradiction in the American story of democracy and liberty, that the only real rights we have are those the government sees fit to enforce. You talk about the suspension of principles, depending on the circumstance. And this is a long-standing criticism of the American government, particularly if you’re a minority, a woman, a trans person, or if you’re poor.

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You’ve shared your unique perspective on this issue, having lived under a dictatorship in Syria under Bashar al-Assad. You have said at least in Syria, the government wasn’t telling you it was upholding your rights. [laughs] They were open about it. And since your abduction, we’re seeing the government be in many ways more open about its intentions here. But what happens after that? 

MK: It’s fascism. It is authoritarianism. What we’re seeing within my case or other cases is authoritarian practices. The government is trying their luck. For the government now, the worst thing that could happen is a court telling them, “No, maybe you shouldn’t do this.”

But for me, I lost 104 days of my life. For others, they lost their entire lives. I’m not an expert on authoritarianism or dictatorships, but I lived under dictatorship. As I said, in Syria, I hid my face because I knew the risks. It wasn’t Assad was going out and saying, “We have freedom of speech, and we have all of that.” It wasn’t like that. You knew the consequences.

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Here, they would gaslight you into “No, you have rights. You have all of this.” But you have rights because it’s convenient for them. As long as you’re not damaging or impacting the structures of power, you have freedom of speech, you have rule of law, the Constitution applies to you. But the moment that your speech or your actions threaten that structure of power, you would see the opposite — which is authoritarianism at the end of the day.

Trump is not hiding it. When they arrested me, they said, “This is a blueprint to go after everyone who’s speaking out for Palestine.” It’s not like they hid their intentions at all. 

Part of me, like years from now, America would look back on ICE detention, on Palestine, and say, why did we let this happen? And that’s part of my fight. That’s why I’m doing this right now, because we need to stop it now. We can’t afford to wait 20 years from now because people are being killed. People are being disappeared. 65,000 at any moment are in ICE detention separated from their families.

AL: Mahmoud, are there any final thoughts you would like to leave our listeners with?

MK: I wrote this book to raise the alarm that we can’t afford to stay silent. That in our backyards, there are ICE detention centers. In our backyards, there are weapon manufacturers who are shipping weapons to Israel to kill people. We must act now, and we can’t just afford to wait.

AL: Mahmoud Khalil, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us on The Intercept Briefing.

MK: No, it’s my honor, Akela. Thank you so much.

AL: That does it for this episode. 

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you’re following or want to see more coverage of. Email us at podcasts@theintercept.com, or leave us a voice mail at 530-POD-CAST. That’s 530-763-2278.

This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Video editing by Sean Turner. Jordan Uhl is our social media producer. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our managing editor. Nara Shin is our copy editor. William Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow. And a special thank you to our recording engineer David Herman at Good Studio. Slip Stream provided our theme music.

This show and our reporting at The Intercept do not exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com/join. 

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. Leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find our reporting. 

Until next time, I’m Akela Lacy.

The post Mahmoud Khalil: “We Can’t Afford to Stay Silent” appeared first on The Intercept.

On March 6 of last year, two days before unidentified officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement abducted and arrested Khalil at his home, the FBI received an anonymous tip claiming that Khalil, listed incorrectly as a 22-year-old, had called for “violence on behalf of Hamas.” 

According to the heavily redacted documents, as of March 19, 2025, the FBI had closed an investigation into the tip and determined that Khalil “does not warrant further FBI investigation.” But by then, ICE had already secretly taken Khalil, now 31, thousands of miles away to a detention center in Louisiana. Despite the FBI’s decision to close the tip, the Trump administration continued to paint Khalil as a “Hamas supporter” and a threat to national security. 

It’s unclear if the FBI tip was directly related to Khalil’s ICE arrest, and the FBI did not respond to The Intercept’s question about whether the tip was shared with ICE. But Hamid Bendaas, a spokesperson at the Institute for Middle East Understanding, which has worked with Khalil since his arrest, said the timing reflects “a threat to us all.”

Though the FBI document says Khalil did not warrant further investigation, “that didn’t stop ICE from holding him in a detention center and separating him from his wife and newborn son for months,” Bendaas said. 

The document comes to light as the Trump administration has fast-tracked Khalil’s deportation case, which Khalil’s legal team argues is a form of retaliation against his protected political speech in support of Palestine. Khalil’s team received the FBI document, which has not been previously reported, via a lawsuit over a public records request and shared it exclusively with The Intercept.

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Khalil was the first of thousands of students the Trump administration targeted for deportation over First Amendment-protected speech in support of Palestine or criticizing Israel. The Trump administration exploited an obscure provision in immigration law to claim that Khalil and other students, including Mohsen Mahdawi and Rümeysa Öztürk, presented a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who ordered Khalil to be deported, has repeatedly claimed that he sympathized with terrorists, echoing claims from far-right doxing groups that had targeted Khalil in the months leading up to his arrest. Trump’s unprecedented crackdown came after years of similar attacks on pro-Palestine students that gained speed under former President Joe Biden. 

“Under Trump’s rogue presidency being led by extremists and conspiracy theorists,” Bendaas said, “any of us can be kidnapped by federal agents in the middle of the night simply for speaking against U.S. support for Israel’s genocide, no matter what the facts or Constitution says.” 

The Center for Constitutional Rights, part of Khalil’s legal team, submitted a request for public documents related to his arrest nearly a year ago, on May 29, 2025. After denials and delays, CCR filed a lawsuit on November 20 claiming that federal agencies, including the FBI, had improperly withheld the records. CCR said it has since received other documents from the Department of Justice and is expecting more from other agencies in the coming months.

“Despite the FBI closing its investigation with no findings to support the accusation, the Trump administration continued to label Mr. Khalil a supporter of Hamas in public comments,” said CCR staff attorney Samah Sisay. “This document further supports our argument that the Trump administration had no legitimate reason to target Mr. Khalil besides his free speech in support of Palestine.”

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In a statement to The Intercept, an FBI spokesperson said, “We let documents obtained through the FOIA process speak for themselves and decline to comment further.”

Reacting to the FBI file, an attorney at Palestine Legal condemned the Trump administration’s approach but called it “representative of the tactics used more broadly against Palestine activists.”

“Revelations that false reports were made against Mahmoud prior to his government sanctioned kidnapping, and that the administration continued to make false claims that Mahmoud posed a danger, even though the FBI found these claims to be unsubstantiated, are highly representative of this administration’s broader approach of acting first and making up justifications later, with no regard for truth or the findings of the administration’s own experts,” said Zoha Khalili, a senior managing attorney at Palestine Legal. “Around the world, people who demand freedom, equality, liberation, and the basic necessities of life for Palestinians have been smeared, silenced, investigated, and even imprisoned for their advocacy.”

Khalil’s team also plans to appeal the Board of Immigration Appeals order rejecting Khalil’s appeal to terminate his deportation proceedings. He is still fighting a separate federal habeas corpus case and cannot be deported while the case proceeds.

Update: May 12, 2026, 4:06 p.m. ET
This story has been updated with a comment from an attorney at Palestine Legal sent after publication.

The post FBI Quietly Closed a Probe Into Mahmoud Khalil While He Was in ICE Detention appeared first on The Intercept.

When government agents surrounded Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and his pregnant wife outside their New York City apartment over the weekend, it marked a chilling escalation in the battle over free speech in America. Those agents weren’t enforcing immigration policy; they were sending a message about the consequences of political expression. 

After serving as a negotiator during campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, Khalil became the target of what his attorney called “a profound doxing campaign for two months related to his First Amendment protected activities” — harassment so severe he had desperately sought help from university leadership.

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ICE Secretly Hauled Mahmoud Khalil to Louisiana as Retaliation, Lawyers Allege

Despite being a lawful permanent resident entitled to constitutional protections, Khalil was transported to a detention facility thousands of miles away, effectively “disappeared” for over 24 hours. The political motivation became explicit when President Donald Trump celebrated the arrest on social media, calling it “the first arrest of many to come.” 

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, we discuss the profound implications Khalil’s case raises for free speech and due process with Edward Ahmed Mitchell, civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Columbia Journalism Review reporter Meghnad Bose.

“It’s very clear the administration is waging a war on free speech — free speech for Palestine. They said they were going to do it when they took office. And that is what they are doing. Their issue with him is that he is a Muslim who is a lawful, permanent resident of America and he exercised his right to speak up for Palestinian human rights,” says Mitchell. 

Bose adds, “ It’s this sort of thinking that if you are somehow critical of a certain position of the United States government, except this isn’t even a position of the United States government. You’re basically saying, if you’re critical of the position of a foreign government — in this case, the Israeli government — that you can be penalized in the United States, even if you’ve not broken any law.” 

Mitchell warns even U.S. citizens face risk: “American citizens should be safe in all this, but Stephen Miller and others have said they want to review the naturalization of citizens to see whether or not there are grounds to remove their citizenship. So in the worst-case scenario, you can imagine them trying to find or manufacture some way to target even the citizenship status of people who were lawful permanent residents and then attained citizenship. So they’re going all out to silence speech for Palestine.”

Bose says it’s not just about immigration status; the government has other draconian tools at its disposal as well. “They can jail U.S. citizens too. They don’t have to deport you or take away your citizenship, he says. “They can incarcerate U.S. citizens too.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

The post The Disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil appeared first on The Intercept.

While Rubio and the Trump administration claimed in public that they wanted to deport students including Mahmoud Khalil and Yunseo Chung for supporting terrorism, internal Department of Homeland Security and State Department documents instead cite their advocacy for Palestinian rights in protests and writings — activities protected by the First Amendment.

Rubio and the administration have repeatedly conflated pro-Palestinian speech with support for Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization, but a DHS memo shows the government did not find any evidence that Chung or Khalil provided “material support” — meaning cash payment, property, or services — to any terror group. Even in their own communications, DHS and the State Department acknowledged they were in uncharted territory and likely to face backlash.

“DHS has not identified any alternative grounds of removability that would be applicable to Chung and Khalil, including the ground of removability for aliens who have provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization or terrorist activity,” reads the March 8 memo. “We are not aware of any prior exercises of the Secretary’s removal authority in [the Immigration and Nationality Act] section 237(a)(4)(c), and given their [lawful permanent resident] status, Chung and Khalil are likely to challenge their removal under this authority, and courts may scrutinize the basis for these determinations.”

Yet the following day, Rubio claimed that Khalil and the other students were supporting terrorist organizations. “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” wrote Rubio on X on March 9, referencing Khalil’s arrest.

The hundreds of pages of documents were evidence in a lawsuit brought against President Donald Trump, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and DHS by five students and academics — Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, Mohsen Mahdawi, Khalil, and Chung — who alleged that their deportation orders violated their freedom of expression. 

The students won their case last year, but until Thursday, the trove of documents remained under lock and key after the judge agreed to seal the records on the State Department’s behalf. At the request of The Intercept, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Center for Investigative Reporting, Massachusetts District Judge William G. Young ultimately unsealed the records, revealing intimate details about the State Department’s persecution of students speaking out in support of Palestine.

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The documents include a series of memos sent from the Department of Homeland Security to the State Department recommending deportation orders for the five students. The correspondence overwhelmingly focuses on the students’ participation in on campus protests and advocacy.

In the memos, commissioned by Rubio, the State Department and DHS argued that the students posed a threat to U.S. foreign policy because the protests they participated in fostered a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” and undermined “U.S policy to combat anti-semitism around the world.” DHS and the State Department repeatedly based accusations of antisemitism and supporting terrorism on the students’ public speech, often noting that the First Amendment could make it difficult for the U.S. to win their deportation cases.

In Öztürk’s case, a State Department document dated March 21, 2025, noted that her visa had been revoked because she “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later banned from campus.”

A separate document from the State Department dated March 15, referencing an assessment from DHS, found that Suri was “actively supporting Hamas terrorism” and “actively spreads its propaganda,” based on Facebook posts.

However, the State Department memo cautioned that Suri was likely to challenge his removal on First Amendment grounds. “Given the reliance on Suri’s public statements as an academic, and the potential that a court may consider his actions inextricably tied to speech protected under the First Amendment, it is likely that courts will closely scrutinize the basis for this determination,” officials wrote. 

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Despite Court Ruling, ICE Can’t Detain Mahmoud Khalil — For Now

While the students won their lawsuit against the government, an appeals court earlier this month reversed the decision that released Khalil from custody. He still has time to appeal the reversal before he can legally be detained, but the White House has said the government plans to rearrest him and deport him to Algeria.

The State Department did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment by the time of publication.

The post New Legal Documents Show Marco Rubio Targeted Students for Op-Eds and Protesting appeared first on The Intercept.

After Mahdawi’s 14 days in immigration detention, Vermont District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered the immediate release of the pro-Palestine activist, arguing in part that his continued detention would “likely have a chilling effect on protected speech.”

The judge also noted that Mahdawi, 34, is not a “flight risk” or a “danger to the community.”

Mahdawi’s legal fight is far from over. The U.S. permanent resident, who was born in the West Bank, will have to return to court to argue his habeas petition to block the government from detaining and deporting him.

But on Wednesday, Mahdawi struck a defiant tone. “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” said Mahdawi from the outside Vermont courthouse.

Mahdawi, a pacifist who stepped back from his activist work to focus on building bridges between Jewish and Israeli students and the Palestinian movement on campus, also shared a message of unity and joint struggle.  

“What we are witnessing now and what we’re understanding is exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King has said before: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he said.

On April 14, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Mahdawi at his scheduled naturalization interview. Mahdawi had previously been in hiding after ICE arrested his friend and fellow Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, fearing similar retaliation. His attorneys argued that the interview was effectively a “trap.” The government is now trying to deport him back to the West Bank, where he fears repression.

“It’s kind of a death sentence,” Mahdawi previously told The Intercept. “Because my people are being killed unjustly in an indiscriminate way.”

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While his legal battle is ongoing, the decision marks a clear victory for the international students at the center of the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian organizers. “We are hopeful that it will build momentum for the release of Mahmoud [Khalil], Rumeysa [Öztürk], Dr. Bader Khan Suri, and other students and scholars detained for their speech in support of Palestinian rights,” Noor Zafar, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and a member of Khalil’s legal team, wrote to The Intercept.

On Tuesday, a judge issued a key ruling in favor of Khalil, a Syrian-born U.S. permanent resident. The court ordered that Khalil’s attorneys can argue in federal court that he was detained and targeted for expressing his political views.

Despite these victories, both Khalil and Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate student who had her visa revoked and was kidnapped off the street by ICE agents for writing an op-ed critical of Israel, remain detained in Louisiana. On Monday, an appeals court paused an earlier court order transferring Öztürk to Vermont. Her lawyers argued that could mean she remains in the Louisiana detention facility, notably without access to proper medical care, for months.

The post Students Are Winning in Court Against Trump’s Deportation Regime appeared first on The Intercept.

When ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday for comments he made about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer, outrage poured out of all corners of the liberal body politic. It was an example of “government silencing dissenting voices,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. Pod Save America’s Tommy Vietor called it “a wild overreaction.” If you fall for it, according to commentator Hasan Piker, “you’re an easily tricked adult and a fucking loser.”

In light of threats from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, ABC’s move to crush Kimmel over the comments stands as a particularly craven example of capitulation by the corporate media — especially given the relatively banal and careful wording Kimmel used.

The corporate media has not covered itself in glory during President Donald Trump’s second term. Poor coverage decisions, a willingness to give the powerful the benefit of the doubt, and an eye toward profit at the expense of journalistic integrity are nothing new.

Yet the Kimmel affair is a prime demonstration of how the president’s vindictiveness and greed have pushed those failures to a new low. 

What might be more telling about the mainstream media’s failure to stand up against the assault on free speech, however, was something few commentators have bothered to mention: what happened to sometime student activist Mahmoud Khalil just hours earlier. 

Cowardice Begets Cowardice

Khalil, who was detained by immigration authorities for three months earlier this year over his advocacy for Palestinian rights, was ordered deported to Algeria or Syria on Wednesday afternoon. 

The Palestinian green card holder, who was born in Syria, became a flashpoint after his detention was explicitly tied to his activism against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

The news that he may now be expelled from the country should have been met with equal or greater condemnation from liberals and the left than Kimmel’s was. (Khalil appears safe so long as his federal case against the original detention proceeds, but the new immigration ruling was under new pretenses, meaning he could be deported when the federal trial ends.)

It’s a far more dangerous and brutal consequence of speech the White House doesn’t like than a suspension from late night hosting duties. 

Never mind the imbalance — the two cases didn’t even merit equal treatment in the eyes of the corporate media.

Kimmel is certainly more prominent and famous — a household name to much of the country — than Khalil is. That isn’t the only reason for the differing levels of outrage. Indeed, the recognition gap was in large part thanks to the corporate media’s failings to properly cover Khalil’s detention in the first place, due to the uniqueness of the main issue animating his ordeal: his advocacy for Palestine. 

As with so many cases of the “Palestine exception” to free speech, Khalil’s detention was treated by much of the media as being implicitly justified by baseless accusations of antisemitism against him. Media figures on the left and right alike created a permission structure for his silencing. 

The same fear, miscalculations, and hostility to free speech that informed coverage of Khalil are now resulting in corporate media censorship of its own on-air personalities. 

Eager to please a president who is notoriously thin-skinned and obsessed with his treatment on television, ABC and its parent company Disney folded instantly to pressure from the FCC chair as well as local syndicators Nexstar and Sinclair. 

In both cases — pressure against directly confronting the lies behind Khalil’s detention and the capitulation on Kimmel — the political forces at work came from the ideological right. Sinclair is a longtime ideological ally of Trump and the conservative movement, having served as a useful organ for the right, including through a literal fake news scheme. 

There were, of course, other interests at work — business interests. Nexstar is preparing for a $6.2 billion merger with competitor Tegna, one that would require regulatory approval from an administration that has shown its willingness to weaponize government power in service of its agenda.

Cashing Out

Nexstar isn’t the only media company to put corporate interests above speech in Trump’s second term. 

Before the election, the Washington Post pulled its expected endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, a move that reportedly came from owner Jeff Bezos, whose Amazon Web Services holds billions in federal contracts.

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In July, Paramount settled a lawsuit from Trump to the tune of $16 million over an episode of CBS’s “60 Minutes” — just ahead of a Paramount sale to the son of pro-Trump billionaire Larry Ellison, a sale that required regulatory approval. 

Yet more media consolidation under craven pro-Trump political forces is looming. David Ellison’s Paramount is angling to make two mega-network deals, eyeing acquisitions of Warner Bros. Discovery and CNN.

And the younger Ellison allegedly floated the idea of buying anti-speech conservative gadfly Bari Weiss’s The Free Press and putting the ideological Weiss — who once, as a college student, sought to ban professors for their views on Israel and Palestine — in charge of CBS. 

Ellison’s control of CBS News has already resulted in policy changes to appease administration officials and canceling the show of Trump critic Stephen Colbert. 

With men like Ellison ready and willing to deploy their billions in service of the ruling party and a media institution so weak it can’t stand up to a despotic regime tightening the screws, the future of news media in the U.S. looks exceptionally bleak. 

Kimmel’s suspension is only the latest example of mainstream media’s willingness to bend over backward to appease Trump, but a sign of an increased willingness from corporate giants to cannibalize their own popular figures. 

It’s not hard to see how the administration’s demands are getting more brazen when mainstream media capitulated so early in a clear-cut free speech case like Khalil’s.

The post Jimmy Kimmel Wasn’t the Biggest Corporate Media Capitulation to Trump This Week appeared first on The Intercept.

But one student newspaper is fighting back. 

The Stanford Daily — the independent publication covering Stanford University — filed a First Amendment lawsuit suing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem earlier this month over two tactics they’ve used in targeted deportation cases.

“What’s at stake in this case is whether, when you’re in the United States, you’re free to voice an opinion critical of the government without fear of retaliation,” said Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a civil liberties group representing the plaintiffs.

“It does not matter if you’re a citizen, here on a green card, or visiting Las Vegas for the weekend — you shouldn’t have to fear retaliation because the government doesn’t like what you have to say,” Fitzpatrick said.

Soon after Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by immigration agents in early March for his role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, student journalists and editors around the country sensed a shift.

“That’s when we saw a significant uptick in calls,” said Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, who manages the nonprofit’s hotline.

Over three decades helping student reporters navigate censorship and First Amendment issues, Hiestand had never fielded so many calls focused on potential immigration consequences for coverage on campus, both for the journalists and their named sources.

Öztürk’s arrest just a couple weeks later sent the legal hotline “into overdrive,” Hiestand told The Intercept. He heard from reporters, editors, and even political cartoonists worried their work about Israel, Palestine, and student protests might make them targets too.

In early April, the Student Press Law Center put out an unprecedented alert with other student journalism organizations, which advised campus publications to consider taking down or revising “certain stories that may now be targeted by immigration officials.”

“ICE has weaponized lawful speech and digital footprints and has forced us all to reconsider long-standing journalism norms,” reads the alert.

The next week, the Stanford Daily editors ran a letter about the chill its own staff was facing on campus.

“Both students and faculty have been increasingly hesitant to speak to The Daily and increasingly worried about comments that have already been made on the record,” their letter read. “Some reporters have been choosing to step away from stories in order to keep their name detached from topics that might draw unwanted attention. Even authors of dated opinion pieces have expressed fear that their words might retroactively put them in danger.”

Following the editors’ letter, FIRE approached the Stanford Daily’s editors to sue the Trump administration. It’s not the first time the publication has fought for freedom of the press in court. In 1978, a case brought by the Stanford Daily over a search warrant targeting its newsroom reached the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-3 that the warrant was valid and did not violate the First Amendment.

The student newspaper’s current suit — filed with two individual plaintiffs suing under the pseudonyms Jane Doe and John Doe — challenges two broad, arcane legal provisions that have become Rubio’s go-to tools against student activists and campus critics of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The first provision, which was added to the country’s immigration code in 1990, grants the secretary of state sweeping authority to render noncitizens deportable if they “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” The second law is even broader, allowing the secretary to revoke visas “at any time, in his discretion.”

There are relatively few cases in which either statute has been the grounds for deportation, particularly compared to the tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has rounded up and detained since Trump returned to the White House.  

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The Case Against Mahmoud Khalil Hinges on Vague “Antisemitism” Claim

In fact, immigration scholars found that invoking the foreign policy provision as the sole grounds for deportation was “almost unprecedented,” according to a brief submitted in Khalil’s ongoing court battle by more than 150 lawyers and law professors. Based on government data, the scholars identified just 15 cases in which the foreign policy provision has ever been invoked, and just four in the past 25 years — most recently in 2018, during the first Trump administration.

“At a minimum, the government’s assertion of authority here is extraordinary — indeed, vanishingly rare,” the scholars wrote in their brief.

In Khalil’s case, the government identified only two others beside Khalil who had been targeted by Rubio under the “foreign policy” provision: although not identified by name, descriptions of the cases match Rubio’s orders against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, and Badar Khan Suri, a scholar at Georgetown University. Oddly, the government failed to mention the case of Yunseo Chung, another Columbia undergraduate with a green card, whose deportation Rubio authorized in the very same letter as for Khalil.

The State Department greenlighted Öztürk’s detention, meanwhile, under the second, broader provision, court records show. The government has not made any similar accounting of how many times Rubio and his staff have invoked his “discretion” to revoke visas over alleged antisemitism. At one point Rubio claimed to have revoked as many as 300 visas, without specifying the authority under which he did so.

“The chill is the point,” Fitzpatrick, the FIRE attorney, said. “It doesn’t take deporting thousands of noncitizens to accomplish that chill,” since no one wants to become “the next Mahmoud Khalil or Rümeysa Öztürk.”

In recent months, numerous courts have cast doubt on whether these two statutes can be used to target noncitizens based on their speech.

In Khalil’s case, which is currently pending in a federal appellate court, a district court judge in New Jersey ruled in June that the “foreign policy” provision is “very likely an unconstitutional statute.”

Similarly, in May a judge in Vermont ordered Öztürk’s release to “ameliorate the chilling effect that Ms. Ozturk’s arguably unconstitutional detention may have on non-citizens present in the country.” The government has also appealed that order, along with similar rulings that freed Mahdawi and Suri from detention, and another ruling that blocked the Trump administration from detaining Chung.

Now, the Stanford Daily is mounting a direct challenge to these two laws as deployed by the Trump administration. The student newspaper argues both provisions are unconstitutional under the First Amendment, at least when used to retaliate against protected speech.

“The Secretary of State and the President claim to possess unreviewable statutory authority to deport any lawfully present noncitizen for speech the government deems anti-American or anti-Israel. They are wrong,” reads their complaint, filed August 6. “The First Amendment cements America’s promise that the government may not subject a speaker to disfavored treatment because those in power do not like his or her message.”

Julia Rose Kraut, a legal historian who has written about the history of ideological deportation in the U.S., told The Intercept that Congress never meant for the foreign policy provision to be used “as a tool to suppress freedom of expression and association.”

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“Members of Congress intended for the foreign policy provision to be used in unusual circumstances, and only sparingly, carefully, and narrowly to exclude or deport specific individuals who would have a clear negative impact on United States foreign policy,” Kraut said, citing changes signed into law after the Cold War.

“What this case is seeking to establish is that political branches’ authority over immigration does not supersede the Bill of Rights,” FIRE’s Fitzpatrick said.

Briefing in the case is ongoing, and a hearing is scheduled for October 1.

“It’s gratifying to see a student newspaper upholding free speech at a time when many institutions are bending the knee,” said Shirin Sinnar, a law professor at Stanford, in an emailed statement. “Many students are afraid to protest the Trump administration’s actions not only because of the deportations, but because their own universities restricted speech and harshly disciplined protestors. I hope their courage inspires others to act.”

The post The Student Newspaper Suing Marco Rubio Over Targeted Deportations appeared first on The Intercept.

Donald Trump’s administration moved this week to declare thousands of immigrants dead.

The 6,000-plus very-much-alive people, predominantly undocumented immigrants from Latin America, continue to eat, sleep, breathe, and work on U.S. soil. Their names have nonetheless been added to the Social Security Administration’s “death master file,” the database used to list dead people who should no longer receive benefits.

The New York Times, the first to report on the perverse repurposing of the death master file, noted with unusual pointedness that the administration was including “the names of living people who the government believes should be treated as if they are dead.”

It’s just the latest move in a relentless effort to make life so unlivable for immigrants.

Listing immigrants among the dead is a nasty workaround to swiftly remove access to means of survival in this country — permanently cutting off access to benefits, bank accounts, and the ability to legally work. It’s just the latest move in a relentless effort to make life so unlivable for immigrants, such that they will be forced to choose to leave, if not swept up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported first.

This is more than cruel expediency. Death is the point.

The Trump administration is openly stating its willingness to condemn millions of people to civic and social death on multiple fronts, from immigrants marked as dead by the Social Security Administration, to denying trans people access to passports, correct documentation, or any existence according to government records at all.

This is not mere metaphorical killing: Expulsion from official public life can be truly deadly.

Trump’s escalation of necropolitical rule — historian Achille Mbembe’s notion of governance organized around exposing certain groups to premature death and elimination — is producing a fascist reality that threatens to revoke the legal rights of whole swaths of the population.

The dead, after all, have no claim to rights.

Mahmoud Khalil’s Rights

These necropolitical affronts aren’t just visible on Social Security rolls. They are an unspoken part of so many of the immigration cases before us. Take, for example, the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate of Columbia University, where he was involved in the anti-genocide protests, and a permanent resident whose U.S. citizen wife is expecting their first child.

“Who has the right to have rights?” Khalil asked in his March letter from a Louisiana ICE detention center. “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.”

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On Friday, a Louisiana immigration judge ruled Khalil can be deported on baseless Trump administration claims that he poses a threat to American foreign policy.

“This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family,” Khalil told the judge, after she informed him of her ruling. “I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months.”

Khalil’s lawyers will be appealing the decision and are pressing a separate habeas corpus petition in federal court in New Jersey. Like the kidnapping and detention of Tufts University Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk for writing an op-ed and the revocation of hundreds of student visas apparently for participation in anti-genocide protests, Khalil’s predicament makes a mockery of constitutional protections.

Khalil’s fight against deportation on baseless charges of “antisemitism” and threats to “national security” is indeed a test case for the limits of basic constitutional and human rights under Trump.

“The right to have rights,” which was first mentioned by philosopher Hannah Arendt, a refugee from Nazi Germany, highlights that a person is not inherently rights-bearing but must be acknowledged as a member of a political community to be granted any other rights at all. We might speak of universal rights, but they must be recognized and only have material force when recognized by state powers.

It is precisely the removal of the right to have rights, the right to be recognized as a human under law, at which Trump aims.

It is no accident that Palestinians and their supporters are among the first targeted. Israel, the U.S., and the so-called rules-based international order have designated Palestinians outside the bounds of rightful acknowledgment — that is to say, expellable, detainable, and killable — for 76 years.

It is precisely the right to be recognized as a human under law at which Trump aims.

“I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights,” Khalil wrote in his letter.

Khalil’s lawyers are arguing that he has been targeted by the administration for nothing more than speech that should be protected under the First Amendment. There is even a particular measure in the 1990 Immigration and Nationality Act that is supposed to bar the government from deporting people as threats to “foreign policy” for speech alone.

And yet to assert these protections has proved fruitless. Where are Mahmoud Khalil’s rights?

Necropolitics Out in the Open

When Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to round up Venezuelan immigrants, this, too, was an attack on the right to have rights. And it is proving successful: The majority of the 200-plus men rounded up on consistently groundless charges of gang membership had no criminal record. That didn’t stop them from being sent, with no due process, to a brutal prison camp in El Salvador.

This policy of extraordinary rendition as deportation only becomes darker with every new detail. U.S. designations of criminality have long been used to strip people of their basic rights. The potentially permanent removal to a totalitarian prison camp would not be justified even if every detainee were convicted of serious crimes.

Take the case of a man who the Trump administration admits was wrongly sent to El Salvador. Despite this admission, the government is fighting to not have to retrieve the man — going so far as to defy a court order on Friday. It reflects a commitment to the removal of demarcated people from the rights-bearing community.

Trump’s Republican Party has been described as a “death cult” since his first term, when MAGA Covid denialism took on deadly and suicidal forms. A rejection of medical science, a welcoming of environmental decimation, an all-out assault on basic welfare provisions, extraordinary worker exploitation, reproductive health care bans, an undying commitment to gun power — these are typical morbidities of American reaction under capitalism, imbued with a messianic charge under Trump.

Like much of the Trumpian project, the administration this time round has a more honed, violent, and unambiguously fascist mode of death-dealing.

Trump’s policies may leave the entire population, including his devoted base, more vulnerable to premature death and debility; Trumpian politics of domination, meanwhile, rely on clearly demarcating so-called enemies and threats as already dead, removable, or killable.

There is, however, at least one way that Trump’s “death cult” turns necropolitics on its head.

Necropolitical governance — the deadly, racist ordering of life and death by Western liberal democracies — have typically sought to administer death behind closed doors or far from home. The public was not supposed to learn about the tortures in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison or the abuses in Guantánamo Bay; the police killings; the racist brutality of prisons; the pollution and its grossly unequal distribution of environmental devastation; and much more.

The Trumpian move is to don the Totenkopf, to embrace and supercharge this monstrous and grossly unequal death tableau.

Khalil, meanwhile, continues to show us what it means to fight for the living.

“After the hearing, Khalil turned around to face the 22 observers and journalists filing out of the courtroom and formed the shape of a heart with his hands,” NPR reported. “He smiled.”

The post Mahmoud Khalil and the Necropolitics of Trump’s Deportation Regime appeared first on The Intercept.

The Department of Homeland Security submitted Rubio’s letter, a 1 ½-page declaration, on Wednesday evening at a Louisiana immigration court at the LaSalle ICE facility. The letter from Rubio is undated and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Khalil’s arrest on March 8. Khalil has been imprisoned at the Louisiana ICE facility since the day after his arrest. 

On Tuesday, Judge Jamee Comans ordered the government to present evidence by Wednesday to justify its attempt to deport Khalil. Rubio’s letter was the sole piece of evidence provided by DHS attorneys, the source said.

Comans will preside over a hearing on Friday to decide whether the government’s evidence is sufficient to deport Khalil. If Comans rules against the government, Khalil could be released as early as Friday. 

“If he’s not removable, I don’t want him to continue to be detained — I will have him released,” Comans told attorneys for Khalil and the government during Tuesday’s hearing, according to multiple reports.

Rubio’s letter does not include new allegations or new evidence to support its deportation claim against Khalil, a legal permanent resident.

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The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free

Instead, the letter cites the “adverse foreign policy” provision in the Immigration Nationality Act, the same provision cited by the government when it imprisoned Khalil in Louisiana. The Trump administration’s attorneys have referred to the provision in multiple court documents in Khalil’s separate habeas petition case in New Jersey, in which Khalil’s legal team has been pushing for his release. 

The rarely used immigration law provision gives the secretary of state the authority to request the deportation of an individual, who is not a U.S. citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country harms U.S. foreign policy interests.

The letter filed Wednesday asserts that Khalil engaged in “antisemitism” and that it is U.S. foreign policy to keep people out of the country who engage in such activities. The letter also includes a second person targeted for deportation, but their name was redacted by the government. The government regularly conflates Khalil’s advocacy for Palestine with antisemitism.

“The public actions and continued presence of [redacted name] and Khalil in the United States undermine U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States,” Rubio wrote. He then cited Trump’s “America First” executive order that calls on the secretary of state to “always put America and American citizens first” in foreign policy. 

“Condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote.

The State Department declined to comment due to the ongoing legal case.

In previous public statements, Rubio has called Khalil “a supporter of Hamas,” the Palestinian militant group which governs over Gaza, a common and baseless claim made by the Trump administration about student protesters who oppose U.S. support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. During an interview with CBS News one week after Khalil’s arrest, Rubio refused to answer a question about whether the government has evidence linking Khalil to Hamas. Instead, Rubio deflected by accusing Khalil of leading protesters in “taking over” Columbia’s campus. 

Khalil was a lead negotiator between the Palestinian solidarity encampment at Columbia University and school administrators in the spring of 2024. The student-led movement demanded the university disclose and withdraw its investments in companies that profit off of Israel’s war in Gaza. Protesters briefly occupied Hamilton Hall, renamed Hind’s Hall, before NYPD officers raided the building, violently arresting dozens of students. Khalil was not among those arrested and faced a short suspension, which school officials quickly apologized for and rescinded after one day.

The Trump administration’s attorneys have previously accused Khalil of hiding certain employment experience from the government when applying for his green card. They claimed that Khalil failed to mention that he had previously worked for the Syria office of the British Embassy in Beirut as well as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Khalil was an unpaid intern at UNRWA for a brief time in 2023.

The government, however, did not include these allegations in its filing in immigration court on Wednesday. 

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Trump Appears to Be Targeting Muslim and “Non-White” Students for Deportation

Khalil’s attorneys have pointed to a statute within the Immigration and Nationality Act that prevents the secretary of state from using the “foreign policy” provision to deport someone based on an individual’s speech unless it has compelling grounds to do so. In a virtual press conference on Thursday, Khalil’s attorneys said Rubio’s letter falls short of establishing such grounds.

“The Rubio memo is completely devoid of any factual recitation as to why exactly Mahmoud’s presence in the United States is adverse to a compelling U.S. government interest,” said Johnny Sinodis, a San Francisco-based immigration attorney and a lead in Khalil’s immigration case. “There’s absolutely nothing there in the letter itself, and that’s all the government has provided in order to establish the ‘foreign policy’ ground.”

Baher Azmy, who is leading Khalil’s case in New Jersey federal court, called Rubio’s letter “a tacky Soviet-style dictate that’s equal parts empty and chilling.”

Marc Van Der Hout, who is leading Khalil’s immigration defense, criticized Judge Comans for moving too quickly on the case without giving the legal team more time to bolster its defense of Khalil against deportation. He still plans on asking to depose Rubio to seek what more evidence, if any exists, the government has against Khalil. Rubio’s letter also alluded to several attachments, such as a letter written by DHS about Khalil and a Homeland Security Investigations profile of Khalil, but both were absent from the government’s filing.

Khalil’s attorneys said it’s clear the government’s case is about cracking down on his speech in support of Palestine and represents a precedent amid the Trump administration’s nationwide attacks on universities and students. The Trump administration has revoked hundreds of student visas since Khalil’s arrest. Many were not involved in protests at all, while some were being targeted for low-level misdemeanors. 

“And where would this lead?” Van Der Hout said. “Are we going to now throw people in jail for speaking out against the Social Security cuts in this country? This is a dangerous slope, and we are taking a stand on behalf of Mahmoud, and he is taking a stand.”

“He’s decided to stay in jail and fight this case to the bitter end,” he added, “while we try to establish that people like Mahmoud have a constitutional right to speak out in this country.”

Update: April 10, 2025, 7:14 p.m. ET
This article has been updated with additional comments.

Update: April 10, 2025, 3:54 p.m. ET
This article has been updated with additional details from the government filing in the case.

The post The Case Against Mahmoud Khalil Hinges on Vague “Antisemitism” Claim appeared first on The Intercept.

For the conservative pundit class, few issues have been as central to their cause as their supposed defense of free speech. Over the last decade, they have built a powerful political movement revolting against the force of so-called cancel culture, which they argued had restricted permissible dialogue and punished free thinkers willing to speak their own truths. 

But as the Trump regime moves to expel from this country a Palestinian U.S. permanent resident based solely on his political expression, many of those free speech warriors have changed their tune. The arrest and attempted deportation of Columbia University graduate and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil demonstrates the clear hypocrisy of many conservative voices when it comes to free speech in America. Conservatives who previously opposed “cancel culture” on the grounds of defending free speech are now quick to support state violence against critics of Israel through the arrest and expulsion of those critics from U.S. society.

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ICE Secretly Hauled Mahmoud Khalil to Louisiana as Retaliation, Lawyers Allege

On March 8, officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrived at the home of Khalil and arrested him, separating him from his wife, a U.S. citizen who is 8 months pregnant. He was ultimately moved to a detention facility in Louisiana, a friendly jurisdiction for government cases against immigrants. Though Trump’s desire to immediately deport the legal U.S. permanent resident has been temporarily blocked by Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York, the threat against him remains. After speaking with Khalil on Tuesday, his attorney Amy Greer said that he “is moved by the extraordinarily broad and steadfast support he has received from a variety of communities that understand what is at stake.”

Khalil faces no criminal charges, and no evidence has been offered to substantiate the Trump administration’s propagandistic claims that he is a “national security threat” who was “inciting violence,” in the words of Trump border czar Tom Homan. Indeed, top White House and Republican Party officials have essentially admitted that Khalil has not committed any crime. Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified his attempt to deport Khalil by claiming — without evidence — that he supports Hamas and “antisemitic activities.” This demonstrates that even as Rubio grossly misrepresents Khalil’s politics, he is actually attempting to deport Khalil because of his alleged politics. When asked what crime Khalil committed, House Speaker Mike Johnson reverted to propaganda talking points.

It is worth noting what Khalil has actually said. In a 2024 interview with CNN, Khalil stated, “As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other. Our movement is a movement for social justice and freedom and equality for everyone.”

Perhaps that is why large numbers of Jewish protesters took over the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City on Thursday to demand Khalil’s release.

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The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free

The Trump administration has argued that it has the power to deport Khalil under the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, which states, “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” But the White House has not shown how Khalil’s advocacy against Israel’s genocide in Gaza would cause “serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” unless one considers it “adverse” to end U.S. support for that genocide. Under the Trump administration’s sweeping interpretation of this language, any legal permanent resident of the U.S. who criticizes any aspect of Trump’s foreign policy — from Trump’s desire to occupy Greenland to his gross abandonment of Ukraine — could be deported. This is a clear attack on the First Amendment and constitutionally protected free speech.

A wide range of conservative voices who have frequently criticized “cancel culture” have been quick to defend the Trump administration’s ugly actions. Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk is one example, having made cancel culture his calling card while justifying the deportation of Khalil. Kirk called him “a Hamas propagandist” and claimed without evidence that he “distributed pamphlets on Hamas’ propaganda” — claims that remain unsubstantiated and are fundamentally about political speech. Dinesh D’Souza followed the same path, arguing against “cancel culture” on the one hand while calling for Khalil’s expulsion based on his alleged offensive speech against “Western civilization,” an allegation that actually appears to be based on a fake Instagram post. Ben Shapiro has often opined against cancellation campaigns that have targeted everything from slave-owning historical figures to present-day conservative media personalities like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. However, Shapiro has retweeted multiple voices on X arguing in support of Khalil’s removal from the U.S., while sharing nothing regarding the free speech concerns or unconstitutionality of this action. The list goes on and on.

To be fair, there have been exceptions to this hypocrisy. Ann Coulter, in her typical style, stated on X, “There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport, but unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment?” Candace Owen has questioned the absence of criminal charges against Khalil and debunked conservative claims regarding what Khalil has said. 

Prominent conservative publications that have argued against “cancel culture” have staked out divergent positions. The Wall Street Journal has been sympathetic to deporting Khalil over supposedly “pro-terrorist” speech, due to the student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest stating, “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” It raises the question: If a Ukrainian student group took this stand, would the Wall Street Journal support their deportation too? Maya Sulkin, a reporter for Bari Weiss’s Free Press, argued that Khalil’s deportation was not about free speech but on-campus crimes. Of course, Khalil has not been charged with or convicted of any crimes, something Sulkin failed to mention. In contrast, Reason Magazine, whose tagline is “Free Minds and Free Markets,” has published multiple pieces that are skeptical or critical of Trump’s actions against Khalil. 

What emerges from the above examples is that too many conservative voices are quick to defend free speech when it serves their ideological goals, but are equally quick to endorse the violent repression of free speech when the speech in question runs counter to those goals.  This targeting of Khalil by Trump and the conservative media ecosystem is just the latest escalation in a decadeslong campaign to silence critics of Israel in the U.S. These strategies have included unfounded claims that critics of Israel are antisemitic, denying opponents of Israeli policy funding or employment, calling them “terrorists,” blocking or removing people from elected office, and preventing advocates for Palestinian freedom from participating in public discourse. The use of these tactics is by no means limited to Republicans, as the Kamala Harris presidential campaign demonstrated when it said no to having a Palestinian speaker at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Trump has promised that Khalil’s arrest is “the first arrest of many to come.” It is worth noting that this policy statement comes directly from the Heritage Foundation, the same conservative think tank that brought us Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther” explicitly calls for deporting leaders of the Palestine solidarity organizations who aren’t U.S. citizens. It also demonizes critics of Israel as part of a “global Hamas Support Network” and ludicrously labels advocates for Palestinian freedom as “destroying capitalism and democracy.”

The simple and ugly reality is that pro-Israel repression in the United States is a necessary ingredient for maintaining U.S. military support for Israel’s destruction of Palestinian society. Without this internal climate of repression, more Americans would be likely to oppose the immense military support the U.S. has long provided to a nation that subjects millions of Palestinians to apartheid and genocide.

As with many of Trump’s actions, his attack on Khalil’s freedom may have backfired by triggering a dramatic response from advocates for civil rights and Palestinian freedom. Protests are occurring at multiple campuses across the U.S, and the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it is joining Khalil’s legal team. Multiple organizations have launched grassroots campaigns calling on universities to oppose Trump’s actions and protect student rights.  

Some elected Democrats have taken a stand in support of Mahmoud Khalil, though many have remained silent. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., declared, “Today it’s Mahmoud Khalil. Tomorrow it’s me or you.” Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee posted “Free Mahmoud Khalil” on X and decried Republican hypocrisy on free speech: “So pro-‘freedom of speech’ that Republicans will DETAIN you if you disagree with them. This is actual cancel culture.” A small contingent from the House of Representatives have released a letter demanding Khalil’s release, as have some New York state elected officials. More actions are expected from other Democrats in the hours and days ahead. 

However, many Democrats have not said anything. Most embarrassingly, Khalil’s own member of Congress, New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat, told The Intercept, “I expect the Department of Justice to work within the confines of the law and that due process is guaranteed to [Khalil] and his family.” This is an utterly absurd position given Trump’s total hostility to the rule of law. Meanwhile, senior Democratic Party leaders have been muddled in their own language. Both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries combined calls for Khalil’s release with the repetition of false claims of antisemitism. Through their statements, they implicitly erased the many Jews who support Khalil and participated in protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

But despite the silence of many, Trump’s actions have brought the vigorous defense of freedom of speech and support for the Palestinian people back into the center of U.S. political debate. The critical task at hand is to combine a robust rejection of Trump’s repression of Palestinian voices with strategies that advance the broader cause. That means freeing Khalil and blocking the detention and deportation of other leaders like him. But it also means putting pro-Israel networks on the defensive, shattering the lie of Republican concern for free speech, and holding silent Democrats accountable. By doing so, we can begin to liberate America from the new McCarthyism of censorship and repression of pro-Palestine speech. And through this, we can end U.S. support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians.

The post The Right Loves Free Speech — Unless It’s Pro-Palestine Speech appeared first on The Intercept.

It found little support among Tlaib’s colleagues in Washington, with a mere 14 Democrats signing their names on the letter condemning Khalil’s detention as an “illegal abduction.” 

Instead, statements from prominent Democrats suggest much of the party is taking the Trump administration’s targeting of Khalil in good faith.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., who counts Khalil as one of his constituents, did not sign the letter. When contacted by The Intercept about the case, Espaillat said he expects the Trump administration — which has explicitly flouted and sought to circumscribe federal legal protections for civil liberties — to adhere to the rule of law.

“Regarding the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a constituent who lives in my district, my office has been following this case closely and as a former green card holder, I expect the Department of Justice to work within the confines of the law and that due process is guaranteed to him and his family,” Espaillat said in a statement Tuesday morning. “The rule of law must be respected.” 

In a statement on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., condemned Khalil’s activism and “antisemitic actions at Columbia,” without providing examples of those actions. He said that the administration should release Khalil if it could determine he had not broken any laws. 

The Trump administration itself has admitted the case against Khalil does not hinge on allegations that he broke the law and told a conservative news outlet that it will these proceedings as a blueprint to target other students.

Tlaib’s letter — first reported by Jewish Insider — specifically calls out the Trump administration’s campaign for pushing to expel Khalil despite the fact he “has not been charged or convicted of any crime.”

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If Trump Can Deport Mahmoud Khalil, Freedom of Speech Is Dead

“As the Trump administration proudly admits, he was targeted solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader and negotiator for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia University campus, protesting the Israeli government’s brutal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza and his university’s complicity in this oppression,” the letter said. “This illegal justification has been stated clearly by figures throughout the administration, including the president himself.”

In a bid to find additional backers, the letter was distributed among all 100 House members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Monday evening with a 10 a.m. deadline, according to a source familiar with the letter. Less than 15 percent of CPC members signed onto the letter, which was published Tuesday morning.

Signatories of the letter include Reps. Andre Carson, D-Ind.; Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas; Al Green, D-Texas; Summer Lee, D-Pa.; Jim McGovern; D-Mass.; Gwen Moore, D-Wis.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Mark Pocan, D-Wis., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.; Lateefah Simon, D-Calif.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y.; and Nikema Williams, D-Ga. 

At least one Democrat reportedly consulted about Khalil prior to his arrest. According to The Forward, an aide for Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., discussed Khalil’s situation with a former operative for the Zionist group Betar. The group has taken credit for sending a list of students it wanted deported to the White House. Betar named Khalil, misspelling his first name, in a tweet in January.

In response to a tweet on Monday from the Senate Judiciary Democrats calling to free Khalil, Fetterman replied: “Free all the hostages who have been tortured, starved, raped, beaten and STILL in tunnels in Gaza by Hamas since October 7th, 2023.” Fetterman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Correction: March 11, 2025, 11:09 p.m. ET
An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the publication that first reported that an aide for Sen. John Fetterman discussed Khalil prior to his detention. That was first reported by The Forward.

The post Dems for Some Reason Expect Trump to Follow the Law on Detention of Mahmoud Khalil appeared first on The Intercept.

Comans made her decision after weighing a single piece of evidence from the government, submitted in court two days earlier: a one-and-a-half-page letter written by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in which he stated that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

Friday’s decision represents a major blow to Khalil and other protesters targeted by the Trump administration. But Khalil’s attorneys promised the fight would continue in the courts. 

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Two major paths remain open to Khalil: one within the immigration court system, and the other in federal district court. Despite Friday’s immigration court decision, Khalil’s attorneys continue to argue in federal district court in New Jersey for his release on free speech grounds. A resolution in the federal case could arrive in a matter of days or weeks. In immigration court, Khalil could apply for asylum, appeal the ruling before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and pursue further appeals within the U.S. circuit court — processes that could stretch for months or even years.

Khalil and his attorneys seem committed to such a lengthy fight, in part because they know the outcome of his case carries major implications for other cases in which the Trump administration is targeting immigrants with arrest and deportation. 

“There’s no stopping at Mahmoud Khalil, there’s no stopping at just pro-Palestinian protesters,” said Baher Azmy, a lead attorney in Khalil’s legal team on Friday. “Next, it could be LGBTQI activists under some pretext that that interferes with our foreign relations with Russia, racial justice activists, anyone.”

Path to Release 

Separate from Khalil’s fight in the immigration court system is his petition for release, which is playing out in New Jersey’s federal district court. There, Khalil’s attorneys are arguing that his free speech rights are being violated and that he must be released. 

That decision will come down to Judge Michael Farbiarz, who inherited the case from New York federal district court, where the petition was originally filed after Khalil’s attorneys successfully fought the government’s push to send the case to Louisiana.

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Standing in the way of Farbiarz releasing Khalil is a separate jurisdictional battle. The Trump administration’s attorneys are making the argument that the case belongs only in the immigration courts. Khalil’s attorneys contend that his case is not just about his immigration status, but also about his First Amendment rights since the government is targeting his protest activities. 

Comans made clear during this week’s hearings in immigration court that she cannot weigh in on issues that have to do with the First Amendment or the Constitution in Khalil’s deportation proceedings. Khalil’s attorneys said this admission should help bolster their argument that the case belongs in district court. 

Khalil’s team continues to move with added urgency since his wife, Noor Abdalla, is pregnant with their first child and is due by the end of April. A supporter read a prepared statement by Abdalla at the Louisiana court on Friday, calling the ruling “a devastating blow to our family.” She also said the ruling was “an indictment of our country’s immigration system and does not reflect truth, justice, or the will of the American people.”

Regardless of whether Farbiarz orders Khalil’s release, Khalil’s fight against his deportation would continue separately in immigration court. If Khalil is released, however, it would dramatically change the timeline of his immigration court fight. 

Immigration cases move much faster for individuals who are detained compared to those who are not in custody, said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Counsel who has been watching Khalil’s case closely.

Reichlin-Melnick said that if Khalil remains jailed, his fight against deportation in the immigration system could end late this year or next. But if he were freed, the case could take up to three years before it reaches a conclusion, he said.

“This could theoretically, if he is released, not even make it to the circuit courts before Trump finishes out his term,” Reichlin-Melnick said. 

Within the Immigration System

As a part of Friday’s ruling, Comans said Khalil has until April 26 to file for relief from deportation. His attorneys said they are considering filing for an asylum claim under the Convention Against Torture law. 

Marc Van Der Hout, an attorney leading Khalil’s immigration case, said the government’s targeting of Khalil based on his protesting may end up bolstering his claim for asylum. Such a process would require further hearings.

If Khalil is released, he would be able to file for asylum in immigration court in New York, where he lives. New York immigration courts have a backlog of 100,000 asylum claims, despite having only a few hundred judges, said Reichlin-Melnick. Getting to an asylum hearing, a process which he described as “a mini trial” with expert witnesses, could take several years.

If the immigration court rejects Khalil’s asylum claim, his attorneys said they plan to appeal the deportation ruling before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is made up of immigration judges overseen by the Department of Justice. The appeal process before the board may play out over several months or several years, depending on whether Khalil is still detained or free, Reichlin-Melnick said.

Before the board, Khalil and his attorneys would likely face stark opposition — case law would not be on his side. The last time the Board of Immigration Appeals saw a case related to the “adverse foreign policy” provision used in Khalil’s case was in 1999. In that case, the board ruled that the secretary of state had the authority to deport someone under the same provision. But the circumstances were dramatically different. The board was ruling on the deportation of former Mexican attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu, who had fled Mexico and entered the U.S. on a temporary visa to avoid a slew of criminal charges, including money laundering, embezzlement, and torture. 

Reichlin-Melnick also pointed out that Khalil, a legal permanent resident, would be able to hold on to his green card throughout the immigration court proceedings. It would only be revoked if the board rules against Khalil and upholds his deportability.

A “Kangaroo Court”

Van Der Hout and Khalil’s legal team said they have little confidence in finding relief in the immigration court system. Comans denied separate motions asking to extend the hearing into next week and a request for more evidence from the Department of Homeland Security. In her ruling, she said she does not have the authority to override Rubio’s letter.

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After Friday’s hearing, attorneys for Khalil called the judge’s ruling a “rubber stamp” of the government’s argument. Van Der Hout accused the judge of rushing the matter, giving Khalil’s legal team less than two days to examine evidence from the government before the hearing. He referred to the process as a “kangaroo court.” 

Khalil himself said after the ruling that the proceedings had lacked “due process rights and fundamental fairness.”

“This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family,” he said. 

Van Der Hout further accused the Trump administration of “court shopping,” sending the case into a jurisdiction more favorable to the government.

Amid the Trump administration’s mass layoffs across the federal government, the administration fired 20 immigration judges in February, including nine judges from the Board of Immigration Appeals. All of the nine judges fired from the board were appointed by the Biden administration. Recently-fired immigration judges called the moves by Attorney General Pam Bondi politically motivated. The Bush administration carried out a similar tactic in the early 2000s to achieve rulings favorable to the government in immigration court, which officials at the time had denied.

Khalil’s attorneys said Friday that such moves may also play a factor in his case.

“They’re putting in their hand-picked people who will rule the way they want them to rule,” alleged Van Der Hout. “There’s basically going to be no justice in the immigration court system based on what we’re seeing now.”

Although his attorneys have yet to discuss legal strategy beyond an appeal to the immigration board, if the board rules against Khalil and upholds his deportation, his attorneys could continue their fight in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Reichlin-Melnick said. There, they would be able to pursue their argument that the government is violating Khalil’s constitutional rights.

“This is by no means over yet — there’s a lot that has still yet to happen in this case,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “The decision that he can be deported is not a decision that he will be deported.”

The post What Comes Next in Mahmoud Khalil’s Fight Against Deportation appeared first on The Intercept.

Even the government agrees it’s not about committing a crime.

According to court filings obtained by The Intercept, the government’s main argument against Khalil rests on a civil law provision within the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs the country’s immigration and citizenship system. The provision, known as Section 237(a)(4)(c)(i), gives the secretary of state the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a U.S. citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests. 

Department of Homeland Security agents arrested Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian whose family is from Tiberias, in the lobby of his Columbia University apartment on Saturday. After initially alleging they had revoked his student visa, they said they had instead revoked Khalil’s green card. Authorities then secretly transported Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident, from New York to New Jersey, then to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana where judges are known to be more favorable to the government’s legal arguments.

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In a notice for Khalil to appear in immigration court in Louisiana where he remains jailed, the government cites the specific provision and states: “The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” Government lawyers have not, however, provided any evidence, in court filings or hearings, to support their claim. Khalil refused to sign the notice. 

Khalil’s legal team plans to fight the government’s “foreign policy” provision in both the push for his release in federal court and in his deportation proceedings in immigration court, said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a member of Khalil’s legal team. A Manhattan federal district court judge temporarily halted Khalil from being deported while his lawyers continue to push for his release and transfer back to New York, where his attorneys can represent him more easily and he can be closer to his wife who is eight months pregnant.

Khalil’s attorneys plan to contest his detention on free speech grounds under the First Amendment and by challenging the government’s use of the “foreign policy” provision. By evoking the “foreign policy” provision, the Trump administration is making a clear statement not just about its foreign policy goals but also free speech, Azmy said.

“The United States government thinks Mahmoud’s speech in favor of Palestinian human rights and to end the genocide is not only contrary to U.S. foreign policy, which is something in itself, but that that dissent provides grounds for arrest, detention, and deportation,” Azmy said. “It’s an astonishing claim.”

Central to their challenge in court will likely be another provision within the Immigration and Nationality Act that exempts noncitizens facing deportation under the government’s “foreign policy” provision. The exception, known as Section 212(a)(3)(C)(iii), says that an individual cannot be deported under the “foreign policy” provision cited by the government if their “past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States.”

In other words, since Khalil’s past activities were protected free speech under the First Amendment, he should not be deported under the “foreign policy” provision cited by the government, Azmy said. The Department of Homeland Security has said it arrested Khalil, a lead negotiator for Palestine solidarity protesters at Columbia, for having “led activities aligned to Hamas.” But even if such alignments exist, advocacy is protected activity in the U.S., Khalil’s attorneys maintain.

“If there is constitutionally protected speech,” Azmy said. “It doesn’t matter if it goes adverse to the foreign policy interests of the United States — it’s still protected. The government doesn’t get to decide what you can talk about and what you cannot talk about based on whether or not it helps the U.S.”

Khalil’s legal team said the “foreign policy” provision giving the secretary of state the ability to request a deportation is rarely used, and when it has been evoked it is to deny visas for foreign officials who have interfered with democracy in their respective countries or officials with a poor human rights record. And the exception to the provision that prohibits deportations exists to ensure that it would not be used to specifically crack down on people’s speech, Azmy said. 

“Any kind of removal proceeding because the government disagrees with a political perspective would be unlawful,” Azmy said. “So Congress wrote that into the statute, mindful of what the Constitution requires.”

There is an obvious counterargument for government lawyers seeking to deport Khalil. They can turn to an exemption within the exemption that still gives the secretary of state leeway to further argue for deportation if the State Department can provide “a facially reasonable and bona fide determination” that the individual’s presence and activities in the U.S. “compromises” U.S. foreign policy interest, according to the provision and previous immigration case law. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil’s case “is not about free speech” but about “people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with.”

“I think being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down and being complicit in what are clearly crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions,” he said in Ireland on Wednesday, after a visit to Saudi Arabia for ceasefire talks with Ukrainian officials. “If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. And if you do it once you get in, we’re going to revoke it and kick you out.”

Rubio’s words rang hollow to a longtime New Jersey-based immigration attorney Robert Frank, one of the few attorneys to have represented a client in the U.S. who faced deportation under the same “foreign policy” provision evoked in Khalil’s case. During his 50 years of practice as an immigration attorney, Frank said a case decided in 1999 was the only time he had seen the government use the provision.

In the late 1990s, Frank represented former Mexican attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu, who had fled Mexico and entered the U.S. on a temporary visa to avoid a slew of criminal charges, ranging from money laundering to embezzlement and torture. The U.S. government had ordered his deportation by using the “foreign policy” provision after Mexico requested his return, following several failed extradition attempts. Then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher argued that keeping him would strain the U.S. relationship with Mexico. The government eventually won the case, and in 1999 Massieu was ordered to be deported.

“You can see the clear foreign policy connection — the government of Mexico is asking the U.S. to get involved — whereas this present case [with Khalil], you don’t have that at all,” Frank told The Intercept. 

“What is the foreign policy effect of this fellow talking pro-Palestinian or pro-Hamas — how does that affect the foreign policy of the United States?” Frank said, adding, “Israel may not be happy with saying things in favor of Hamas,” but that’s not grounds for deportation under the provision.

Frank challenged the provision in his client’s 1990s case, arguing that an immigration court judge should preside over whether his client would be deported or not, rather than the secretary of state alone. An immigration judge sided with Frank and halted the deportation. However, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is under the Department of Justice, overturned the decision upon government appeal. 

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While government attorneys have yet to argue their claim under the “foreign policy” provision in court, the White House has made unsubstantiated claims linking Khalil with Hamas, the Palestinian militant and political group that governs Gaza, which the U.S. includes on its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that Khalil had “organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish-American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda flyers with the logo of Hamas.”

“We have a zero tolerance policy for siding with terrorists,” she said.

Leavitt added that the Department of Homeland Security had provided her copies of the flyers, which the White House press office later privately shared with the conservative tabloid the New York Post. The flyers include the cover of a pamphlet published by Hamas, and widely shared online, titled “Our Narrative: Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” and another flyer showing a boot crushing the Star of David with the message “Crush Zionism.” Leavitt and the Post made the accusations without offering evidence that ties Khalil himself to the flyers. 

Azmy dismissed the claims and said government attorneys have not introduced the flyers as evidence in their case against Khalil and haven’t referred to them in court. Even if campus protesters had passed out those flyers, such actions would be protected under the First Amendment, he said.

“We don’t concede for a moment he did any of this,” Azmy added. “And even if the Trump administration is choosing to deport people for flyers, then we have much bigger problems on our hands — it’s a form of tacky authoritarianism.” 

During a press conference outside a Manhattan courthouse where a hearing took place Wednesday for Khalil’s case, hundreds of protesters had gathered. Thousands more marched across the country throughout the last several days, demanding Khalil’s release. 

Ramzi Kassem, one of Khalil’s attorneys and the founding director of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility at the City University of New York, said the “foreign policy” provision “is not intended to be used to silence pro-Palestinian speech, or any other speech, that the government happens to dislike.”

“This case is not going to set the precedent that the government wants it to set, whether its federal court or immigration court,” he said before a crowd of protesters. “And you already know that just by looking behind you that it’s not having the effect that the government wants it to have with people’s solidarity with Palestinians.”

The post The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free appeared first on The Intercept.

The suspension lasted only one day before Columbia — with an apology from the university president’s office, Khalil later said — rescinded the suspension and dropped the disciplinary charges against him.

“After reviewing our records and reviewing evidence with Columbia University Public Safety, it has been determined to rescind your interim suspension,” wrote Claudia Andrade, an associate vice president with the school’s Center for Student Success and Intervention, in an email obtained by The Intercept. “Good luck on finals and hope you have a wonderful summer.”

Nearly a year later, the ongoing immigration case against Khalil, a green card holder who earned a master’s degree from Columbia in December, has become a national First Amendment battle with the Trump administration.

The arrest of and attempt to deport of Khalil hinged on casting his protest activity at Columbia as inimical to American interests. The Trump administration cited his role as a negotiator for student protesters as a reason for Khalil’s arrest.

According to documents obtained by The Intercept and a previous interview with Khalil, however, at the height of last year’s protests Khalil had faced disciplinary charges for a single day before being cleared of the allegation, having his interim suspension lifted, and receiving an apology from the school administration. The school, according to the documents, found no fault with Khalil that would merit disciplinary action.

An attorney representing Khalil said the charges and abrupt reversal were a common tactic used against student protesters.

“Emails like this one are one of the many types of psychologically damaging things Columbia does regularly to its students,” Amy Greer, Khalil’s attorney, told The Intercept. “It imposes interim measures and then retracts. It adds students to disciplinary cases and then dismisses.”

The Negotiator

Khalil’s brief suspension came as tensions over Columbia’s protests against Israel’s war on Gaza boiled over. Students at the school were at the forefront of a burgeoning movement to erect protest encampments on university grounds. And the Columbia administration was in talks with the students about their demands — particularly divestment from Israel — and how to clear the tent city from campus.

A graduate student active in the protest movement, Khalil served as a lead negotiator in talks over divestment from Israel. While others in the protest movement sometimes covered their faces to conceal their identity, Khalil frequently briefed journalists on the negotiation proceedings without a mask.

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On April 29, Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia who later resigned in August, announced that the negotiations had failed and the university would not divest from Israel.

That morning, the university handed protesters disciplinary warnings on Columbia letterhead saying that if they didn’t leave the encampment before 2 p.m., they would be suspended, preventing them from completing the spring 2024 semester.

According to Khalil, the university had provided written and oral confirmation that he would not be disciplined for his involvement in the encampments as a negotiator, but, the day after the negotiations’ failure and the building takeover, he was issued an interim suspension anyway following the demonstration. (A Columbia spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.)

Khalil was accused of not leaving Columbia’s spring encampment despite earlier warnings. The school charged him with violations including “disruptive behavior,” activity relating to “tenting,” “failure to comply,” unauthorized “access and egress,” and “vandalism.”

A group of students acting on their own volition then moved to occupy Hamilton Hall, a central academic building later that night.

“You are restricted from all Columbia University campuses, facilities, and property, including but not limited to all academic and recreational spaces,” Khalil’s suspension notice read. “The current unauthorized encampment and disruption on Columbia University is creating an unwelcoming environment for members of our community.”

Similar interim suspension notices with identical language that were reviewed by The Intercept told alleged encampment participants that they could not participate in exams, submit assignments, or “engage in any activities affiliated with Columbia University” during the interim suspensions.

Given the reassurances from the administration, Khalil was “shocked” to receive the suspension notice, he told me in a May 2024 interview conducted for a separate story. The suspension, he thought, was meant “only to intimidate students regardless of their involvement.”

Greer, Khalil’s attorney, told The Intercept that it was possible Mahmoud’s suspension was just a miscommunication.

“It’s either the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing,” she said, “or they thought that they were somehow going to punish him for being a negotiator without anybody caring.”

Immigration Status

Suspensions can have particularly serious effects for international students. According to some immigration law experts, if a suspension prevents an international student from fulfilling a full course load or full-time status, the university may be required to report the student to the Department of Homeland Security within 21 days.

By barring Khalil from campus, his suspension could have qualified him for the DHS notification. At the time, Khalil said he was studying on an F-1 student visa.

The suspension, however, didn’t raise immediate alarms for Khalil about his immigration status.

“I did not worry about my immigration status, to be honest, at that point.”

“I did not worry about my immigration status, to be honest, at that point because there were higher stakes in terms of police coming into campus,” Khalil said in his May interview with me.

His right to be in the country, though, had been more generally hanging over his head.

Before the suspension came down, Khalil had already said he would avoid directly participating in protests because of his visa. The school’s “one-sided statements and inaction” on the Gaza war, he told reporters at a press conference as campus tensions mounted in late April, made him acutely aware of his precarious status in the country.

In May, in the aftermath of the crackdown and his suspension, Khalil told me, “I considered the encampment to be high risk given that the university has threatened to suspend and expel students, which might impact my status here in the States. Not only my immigration but also my university status, my scholarships.”

He added that, though he had earlier expressed reticence about participating, he had nonetheless been “in and out” of the encampment in his capacity as a negotiator.

At some point before his arrest, according to legal filings, he obtained a green card.

Charges Dropped

Things were moving fast on Columbia’s campus. The same evening that Khalil received his suspension notice, Columbia moved to clear the occupation of Hamilton Hall, along with the protest camp.

It would become a harbinger of a deepening crackdown on the nationwide student protest movement, with the university inviting New York City Police Department officers in riot gear onto campus. By midnight on April 30, 109 pro-Palestinian protesters had been arrested.

The next day, on May 1, Khalil received the notice that his disciplinary charges had been dropped. Khalil said in May that the school administration reached out to him unprompted.

“​​They called — the president’s office — to apologize, saying, ‘This shouldn’t have happened,’” Khalil said, recounting the interaction. “They dropped it on their own. Other students — they appealed and got it revoked. I did not have to do anything.”

“​​They called — the president’s office — to apologize, saying, ‘This shouldn’t have happened.’”

Though there were, Khalil said, no additional disciplinary actions against him pending, the rescinded suspension notice said the university reserved the right to add harassment charges or violations of the university’s nondiscrimination policies if he was found to have “contributed to the unwelcome and hostile environment.”

After Khalil’s disciplinary case was dropped by the Center for Student Success, he later came under scrutiny from a controversial new body formed by the university in August: the Office of Institutional Equity. In Khalil’s case and others, his attorney Greer said, the Office of Institutional Equity, has used spurious allegations of discrimination to target pro-Palestinian students making constitutionally protected speech.

Aside from the scrutiny from the Office of Institutional Equity, which Greer said was for protected speech related to social media posts, and the brief suspension, she knows of no other charges against Khalil.

ICE Target

In December, Khalil completed his studies for a master’s degree at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and planned to walk in graduation this May.

In March, though, ICE came for him. During the arrest, captured in a harrowing video taken by Khalil’s eight-months-pregnant wife, shows officers in plain clothes arresting, handcuffing, and whisking Khalil away — refusing to answer questions about their own identities, agency, and reasons for the arrest.

The arrest raised concerns among civil liberties advocates. The government, most prominently Secretary of State Marco Rubio, asserted without citing any evidence that Khalil is a supporter of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip and fought the 18-month war with Israel.

Asked on CBS News if Khalil has any ties to terrorism, Rubio cited only protest activities on Columbia’s campus — referring several times to vandalization, a disciplinary charge that Khalil had specifically been cleared of, and his role as a negotiator for student protesters.

“This specific individual was the negotiator,” Rubio said. “Negotiating on behalf of people that took over a campus? That vandalized buildings? Negotiating over what? That’s a crime in and of itself, that they’re involved in being the negotiator, the spokesperson, this that the other.”

Rubio continued: “The bottom line is this: If you are in this country, to promote Hamas, to promote terrorist organizations, to participate in vandalism, to participate in acts of rebellion and riots on campus. We never would have let you in if we had known that and now that we know it, you’re going to leave.”

He cited no evidence tying Khalil to any acts of vandalism or other crimes, including any terrorism charges.

In a statement released Tuesday through attorneys, Khalil said he was a “political prisoner.”

“The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent,” he wrote. “Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.”

Disciplinary Records

It is unclear whether the suspension charge was completely removed from Khalil’s disciplinary record. Those records have become the subject of a civil lawsuit filed last week by the Council on American-Islamic Relations against Columbia University administrators and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Khalil is the only named plaintiff in the lawsuit, which alleges the Republican-led House committee attempted to chill speech by commanding Columbia to produce student disciplinary records and other private information on multiple occasions.

The lawsuit says that the plaintiffs’ disciplinary records were handed over to Congress, though the scope of the records is unclear. On August 1, according to the lawsuit, the committee accused the university of not complying with their order to share “more detailed information on disciplinary actions relating to the encampment.”

“An immense number of student records were turned over, as well as faculty and staff,” Greer told The Intercept, adding that records belonging to individuals who may not have had active open cases or known that they were being investigated were also included. It is unclear whether any record of Khalil’s suspension was turned over to Congress.

“An immense number of student records were turned over, as well as faculty and staff.”

By fall, the committee published a 325-page report titled “Antisemitism on College Campuses Exposed,” which published redacted incident student records, including disciplinary documents, without university or student consent.

Greer said the information, though parts were redacted, could be used to identify students, including Khalil. The plaintiffs’ sensitive information appeared in the report and led to increased doxxing and safety threats, Greer said.

“The broad-based surveillance the university is undertaking with Mahmoud, but also hundreds of other students, makes us concerned about the breadth of materials that fall under the purview of these letters and subpoenas,” she said.

Last month, the committee demanded the university produce “all disciplinary records,” including “past disciplinary charges” of students implicated in 11 campus incidents after April 30.

Throughout the protests, Khalil had sought to keep things on campus in perspective. The day in April that negotiations failed, he compared the university’s distribution of printed suspension warnings to Israel’s dropping of leaflets on Gaza before an attack.

“The people of Gaza are under occupation, and here, we are under disciplinary charges,” Khalil told students under a threat of suspension. “That’s the difference.”

With disciplinary charges against him dropped, the threat of suspension against Khalil himself never fully materialized. He now finds himself nonetheless under attack from the highest echelons of the American government for his actions on campus.

The post Columbia Apologized to Mahmoud Khalil in May 2024 for One-Day Suspension appeared first on The Intercept.

The federal government shut down on Wednesday as President Donald Trump threatened mass federal layoffs. Republicans are blaming Democrats for the shutdown, while Democrats are refusing to support a Republican spending bill without guarantees to extend Obamacare provisions set to expire and reverse GOP health care cuts earlier this year.

“Democrats are … trying to reverse some of the cuts from the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ that was passed earlier this year to Medicaid,” says Intercept politics reporter Jessica Washington. “So what Democrats are really trying to message here is that they’re fighting for health care, both to reverse some of these Medicaid cuts and also to ensure that the Affordable Care Act subsidies continue.”

This week on The Intercept Briefing, senior politics reporter Akela Lacy speaks to Washington about the government shutdown and the impact it will have on public services, including essential services and federal workers.

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We’re also following a federal court case where an appointee of Ronald Reagan blasted the Trump administration for unlawfully targeting pro-Palestine students for protected speech. 

“It’s a historic ruling that rightly affirms that the First Amendment protects non-citizens lawfully present in the U.S. just as it protects citizens,” says Ramya Krishnan, lecturer at Columbia University Law School and senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which represented plaintiffs in the case. “And if free speech means anything in this country, it means the government can’t lock you up simply because it disagrees with your political views.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Transcript: 

Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Akela Lacy. 

The federal government shut down just after midnight on Wednesday. 

The shutdown could lead to mass federal layoffs and threaten some essential services, though most critical workers in air traffic control and Social Security will work without pay for the time being. 

If this all sounds familiar to you, it should. Shutdowns have become more common over the last 30 years. And the most recent “showdowns” have felt more and more like a charade. Another fight threatened to shut down the government just seven months ago. The most recent shutdown is the second under Donald Trump. The first under Trump, in 2018, marked the longest government shutdown in U.S. history — 35 days — forcing some federal workers to take out loans to make ends meet. 

Republicans, who control both branches of Congress and the White House, have not passed a federal spending bill since Trump took office. They need Democratic votes to do so, but Democrats are currently withholding their support in efforts to show that this time, they really are trying to stand up to Trump.

In the meantime, Trump is using federal workers as pawns — threatening mass permanent layoffs — and delaying the next jobs report. Still, as we’ve discussed on this show before, Republicans, at least for now, appear to be controlling the narrative. 

Joining me now to help us understand the bigger picture is my colleague, Intercept politics reporter Jessica Washington. 

Jessie, welcome to The Intercept Briefing. 

Jessica Washington: Thanks for having me on. 

AL: And just a note, we’re speaking on Wednesday, October 1. 

So Jess, you were on the hill Wednesday morning. What did you see? 

JW: The vibes are, are definitely a little ominous over there. I think even just walking in, things felt pretty negative.

So I walked past some Capitol Police when I first arrived, and they were talking about the shutdown. I mean, they’ll have to potentially go without pay. And so there was a lot of talk. They were saying, I don’t care about Democrats or Republicans. They need to figure this out. But they’ll still have to work during the government shutdown, potentially without pay.

And then attending the Republican leadership press conference was [a] very different story. They were very angry. They were blaming the shutdown on Democrats wanting health care for undocumented immigrants. Obviously [this] isn’t true, but they were playing this with ominous music videos of Democrats who were opposing the last shutdown. It was just this very heated, very intense blame game. 

I think for Democrats we’re also seeing a lot of anger. And a lot of outrage over Republicans’ refusal to consider bipartisan legislation on this. 

AL: What does a government shutdown actually mean? How will this affect everyday people?

JW: So a government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass by the start of the fiscal year — so October 1 — fails to pass the multiple appropriations bills in order to get the government funded. And so what happens here isn’t necessarily that all government functions cease. In fact, essential work has to continue. Medicaid, Medicare payment, Social Security, those are all unaffected by a shutdown. 

But kind of as time goes on, the shutdown becomes more and more dangerous in terms of everyday Americans not getting things like food assistance, or particularly assistance for pregnant women, babies as well.

The bigger impact really is for federal workers who are potentially going to have to go without pay. There are also threats from the Trump administration of mass firing, so we are really not sure what the exact impact is going to be yet. 

It is important to note that Congress and the president will still continue to get paid, while federal workers may have to go without pay. So that’s just an important thing to remember in a government shutdown. 

AL: How did we get here and why hasn’t the government passed a spending bill yet? Is that unusual? 

JW: Yeah. So unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you’re looking at it, it isn’t unusual for the government not to have passed a spending bill at this point.

So continuing resolutions are kind of Congress’s way of getting around having to actually make decisions about the budget and about how they want spending to go forward. So what happens in a continuing resolution is that Congress agrees to fund the government at the same levels as before.

So right now what we’re seeing is both the failure to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels, and also a larger systemic failure to pass appropriations bills. So since Trump has come into office, we haven’t actually seen one of these larger spending packages passed, and so that’s how we ended up here.

AL: Republicans are obviously blaming Democrats, even though they fully control the government, although they do need 60 votes to pass this kind of spending bill. I saw the official House Democrats Twitter account posted a picture of Democratic leaders taking a selfie at the Capitol on Tuesday night that read “House Democrats are in DC and ready to cancel the cuts, lower the costs, save health care,” which they’re now being dragged for. How are Democratic leaders responding to this shutdown? 

JW: So Democratic leadership is really trying to focus on what they’re trying to accomplish by, I don’t want to say enabling the shutdown. It’s a little more complicated than that, but by not passing this continuing resolution that Republicans want.

So they’re really trying to highlight what their asks are. And what those asks are, are an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies to make sure that Americans who get their health care through that program are able to get their subsidies at the existing level and don’t have to spend more on health care.

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Democrats are also interested in trying to reverse some of the cuts from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that was passed earlier this year to Medicaid, so also to ensure that more Americans can continue to access Medicaid. So what Democrats are really trying to message here is that they’re fighting for health care, both to reverse some of these Medicaid cuts and also to ensure that the Affordable Care Act subsidies continue.

AL: Democrats also came under fire for voting to extend funding the last time this happened in March. They seem dug in for the moment. Why is their strategy different here and will it work?

JW: I mean, I would have to imagine, and I haven’t had conversations with Democratic leadership about this, but I would have to imagine a lot of the strategy here, the strategy shift is that they were really attacked last time around for essentially just agreeing to let Republicans continue to make massive cuts to health care and a bunch of other things that Republicans wanted last time around. And so they’re using this spending fight, which they didn’t last time. But what they’re trying to do this time around, which is very different from the last time around, is not just simply capitulate and agree to keep the government spending levels and then just continue to pass Republican measures, which obviously cut health care as well as a bunch of other things that Americans rely on every day.

And so what Democrats are trying to do here is take a stand and not take that hit that they did last time. Particularly Minority Leader [Chuck] Schumer took a massive hit, by capitulating to Republicans. And we’re seeing a very different strategy this time around. 

AL: The Trump administration and Republicans are using this shutdown as an opportunity to permanently lay off a significant number of federal workers. Can you tell us more about that? What would that mean? 

JW: So President Donald Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought have both threatened to mass-fire federal employees during the government shutdown. Now, obviously, they’re using this both as leverage, but also a very real threat. We know that they have been targeting federal employees who have in some cases won, in some cases not. 

And so the unions representing these federal employees have sued the Trump administration and have said that this is an illegal action, that the administration cannot go ahead and just mass-fire federal workers during a government shutdown, that there are legal protections that should keep these workers in place and should even if they have to temporarily go without pay, get them back pay once the government reopens. Obviously the pain of a government shutdown is going to be felt by federal workers regardless, especially if it continues into the next month or so.

AL: So essentially what you’re saying is that this is all happening without any congressional oversight, right? 

JW: Yeah. This would be happening without Congress’s input. 

AL: So I mean, it sounds like it’s also potentially a way for the government to permanently fire employees in programs at their discretion. I mean, is that a possibility? 

JW: Yeah, so it’s definitely— and we’re getting into complicated legal territory here in terms of what the government can do, what they can get away with, what the Supreme Court will allow them to get away with, what district courts will allow them to get away with. But what the Trump administration is trying to do is — without Congress’s input, without the judiciary’s input — they’re trying to just mass-fire these employees. And we know this has been a goal from the administration. 

I think it also has to be understood as a threat and leverage against Democrats who obviously, you know, would like to keep federal employees in their agencies and with pay. And so this is definitely both a threat and then also a real policy goal that this administration has been pursuing since they started 

AL: At this point, what would it take to reopen the government? What happens next? 

JW: Likely it would take a bipartisan bill, something where Democrats could feel as if they got a win on health care. However, we could see more Democrats peel off. Republicans only need seven Democrats in the Senate to pass their continuing resolution. We already saw on Tuesday night that a few Democratic senators, including [John] Fetterman — he’s obviously a notable person to the Intercept audience — we already saw some senators side with Republicans and agree to pass this continuing resolution. Now, if they’re able to get enough Democrats in the Senate to peel off, then they’ll be able to fund the government.

Now an alternative, obviously, is that Republicans come together with Democrats and actually make some level of agreement on healthcare in order to prevent these massive Medicaid cuts that we know are coming as a result of the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

AL: What is the long-term effect of putting the government through this kind of stress? I mean, we already saw this happen back in March. It feels like it’s becoming more frequent. This used to not happen. I mean, prior to 1980, shutdown threats came on the table, but more often Congress just went through a funding gap where the government actually didn’t shut down, but this is becoming a more common thing. I mean, does this cause permanent damage? 

JW: I mean, certainly it causes institutional damage in a number of ways. I mean, one, you have public trust that erodes as a result of a government shutdown. So we know that’s part of it. Obviously federal employees are going to be furloughed. They’re going to go without pay. After they receive their next paycheck, [they] will then have to go without pay during the shutdown. So obviously they’re feeling a huge amount of this burden. But then the American public more broadly will also start to feel this if it continues. So a lot of these agencies have funding that will last them for a short period of time.

But as the time period goes on, we’re going to see certain services cut. So, for example, food assistance programs currently have enough funding to continue for a little while and to keep giving people their subsidies. But eventually those programs will run out of money. If the government isn’t funded on a larger level, agencies will have to furlough their employees, which means they won’t be at work, which means that vital government services won’t be getting the attention that they need, obviously, aside from essential carveouts that statutorily have to continue even during a government shutdown. 

AL: Thank you so much, Jessie, for walking us through all of that. We’re going to leave it there. 

JW: Thank you for having me.

Break 

AL: Next we’re going to turn to a scathing ruling out of a federal court in Massachusetts that blasts Trump’s attacks on pro-Palestine students. Judge William G. Young, an appointee of Ronald Reagan, said Trump weaponized an unconstitutional definition of antisemitism to intimidate and deport pro-Palestine activists. 

Joining me now to break it all down is Ramya Krishnan, a lecturer at Columbia Law School and a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which represented the plaintiffs. Also joining is my colleague, Intercept newsroom counsel and reporter, Shawn Musgrave. 

Ramya and Shawn, welcome to the show. 

Ramya Krishnan: Thanks for having me. 

Shawn Musgrave: Thanks, Akela. 

AL: Ramya, I’ll start with you. What is so remarkable about this ruling? 

RK: Well, it’s a historic ruling that rightly affirms that the First Amendment protects non-citizens lawfully present in the U.S. just as it protects citizens. And that if free speech means anything in this country, it means the government can’t lock you up simply because it disagrees with your political views. And that principle, that basic idea, is foundational to our democracy.

So what Judge [William G.] Young held is that the secretaries of state and homeland security intentionally and in concert engaged in a campaign of intimidation, a campaign that involved arresting, detaining and deporting individuals like Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Mohsen Mahdawi in order to chill pro-Palestinian speech and speech critical of Israel. And it held that this campaign, this policy, is viewpoint discriminatory and in violation of the First Amendment.

AL: Ramya, let’s back up a bit. Can you give some background on the case and the trial? What’s at stake? 

RK: This case is a challenge to the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining and deporting non-citizen students and faculty based on their pro-Palestinian advocacy. So since Trump took office, we’ve seen a number of non-citizens targeted under this policy of ideological deportation. Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University undergraduate, was arrested when he attended his naturalization interview. Rümeysa Öztürk, a grad student at Tufts University, was seized by masked ICE agents from a public street in Somerville, Massachusetts, because she wrote an op-ed that was critical of her university’s failure to divest from Israel. And then you had Mahmoud Khalil, of course, who helped lead student protests at Columbia, who was arrested in the lobby of his apartment building in New York and spirited away to a detention center in Louisiana and locked up there for more than three months. And these are just a handful of the examples we’ve seen. 

And these actions have cast a really powerful chill on university campuses across the country, causing students and faculty to self-censor. We’ve seen non-citizen scholars and students who have withdrawn from political protests, purge their social media, and declining to publish scholarly and other public writing that they fear will put them in the administration’s crosshairs. Some are even self-censoring in the classroom.

So we brought this case on behalf of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association because we believe, as they believe, that no student or faculty member should have to live in fear that they could be seized at any moment by ICE agents from their homes or from the street simply for engaging in lawful political expression.

AL: Shawn, when we were discussing this with our colleagues the other day, you said this judge could be impeached. Why? 

SM: So that might have been an inflammatory way of putting it. This is an extraordinary ruling — not just for the holding itself, but also the way in which Judge Young, a Reagan appointee, set about his task of ruling on it. I mean, as I was writing this up, it kind of felt like I was doing a literary review of a piece of creative nonfiction. There’s some fascinating things in the format that we can talk about, but it also is very much a broadside on how the Trump administration has carried out not only this policy that has been found unconstitutional, but also immigration enforcement generally since January.

In discussing the cases of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, [he] talks about masked agents and calls the testimony of the acting ICE director, I think, squalid and dishonorable — uses the type of language that is much more typical of litigants than of judges in their rulings. And so, I’m not sure if this is impeachable material, but it’ll certainly be attacked, I think, as being very direct and honest about the state of our democracy. And so for that reason, it was striking in addition to the actual constitutional holdings, which I think are also so important. 

AL: I’m glad you’re getting into this because it strikes me as worth noting that perhaps the reaction to this really dense ruling that might not ordinarily draw attention is in part, maybe, surprise that, as you’re saying, Shawn, a judge is speaking so plainly about what the administration is doing. Is that sort of pushback from judges becoming less common under this administration, or what’s going on there? 

SM: I don’t know if it’s becoming less common. I mean, one of the interesting things that we’re seeing — and I say “interesting” and, I don’t know, another word to use there is maybe “terrifying” — is that judges in the various cases dealing, especially with deportations, are applying less of a deference to the administration. There’s this idea in litigation that this presumption of regularity that is often given to the government in different contexts, essentially the assumption on the part of judges is often, “The government is telling the truth, they’re going to do what they said that they were going to do, they’re going to comply with rulings.” Things like that, that’s becoming less common. And in fact, I think we are seeing plenty of rulings, including from Trump appointees, Bush appointees — typically conservative judges — not taking for granted that this administration is going to follow through.

And we saw, actually, plenty of that in the very end of Judge Young’s ruling, this kind of thinking: All right, he’s found that this policy was unconstitutional. What is he as a judge going to do about it in face of defiance of orders by this administration? So we are seeing a real shift. I think this is part of an extreme example, perhaps, but an example still of a shift in tone among the judiciary in this administration. 

AL: What is the next step in the case? 

RK: The next step in the case is that Judge Young is going to hold a hearing on remedy. So in this first phase of the case, which followed a trial, he determined that the administration has been engaged in a policy of targeting non-citizens based on their pro-Palestinian viewpoints, and that this practice, this policy violates the First Amendment. In the second phase of the proceedings, Judge Young will be deciding how best to remedy the unlawful conduct of the administration.

SM: Ramya, can I ask: What did you think about the last section of Judge Young’s opinion about remedies? Because he previewed some restrictions that he saw on both the potential efficacy of remedies on this administration and also in terms of his role as a judge in crafting a remedy to unconstitutional conduct. What did you take from those last couple pages of the ruling on that front? 

RK: Well, I think that fundamentally he recognized that there has to be a remedy to the administration’s unconstitutional conduct.

If he didn’t believe that he was empowered to issue a remedy in this case, then he wouldn’t have been able to issue this ruling at all. Because a key component of establishing your ability to bring a case, what’s called standing, is that the injuries that you assert can actually be redressed by the court.

So he clearly believes that he can issue a remedy here. And what we’ll be asking for is a declaration that what the administration did hear was unlawful, which would be entirely in line with the ruling that he has just issued; and secondly, an order forbidding the administration from engaging in this conduct in the future.

AL: For listeners who are unfamiliar with this case, it received a lot of attention earlier this year when a federal official admitted in court that the government had used information from far-right Zionist groups like Betar and Canary Mission to target students. Ramya, have you learned any more about that?

RK: Yeah, I mean in in some ways, what we heard at trial confirmed what we knew all along, which is that the administration was targeting these non-citizens students and faculty based solely on their pro-Palestinian advocacy. But in many ways, we learn new details that add to this picture of just the scale and the scope and the intensity of the operation the government was engaged in. And as you said, we heard testimony from DHS officials describing the large-scale operation they launched to identify pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses. An operation that by their own admission involves scouring lists of suspected protesters from the likes of Canary Mission and producing reports that repeated those organizations’ unvetted allegations that the protestors are antisemitic and pro-Hamas.

That revelation was clearly influential in Judge Young’s decision, and in particular his determination that the whole reason — the whole purpose — of the government’s policy here, its campaign was to chill the speech of students and faculty who would otherwise engage in pro-Palestinian expression and association.

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SM: In the various petitions that Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi and the others have brought, we learned a little bit about each of their cases: how they were targeted, the timeline for their particular case, and how they were targeted for detention. What I think was most valuable about this litigation effort was how much it — using those handful of examples — still zoomed out to honestly the very mundane, what Judge Young called the “frictionless,” review process that resulted in Rümeysa Öztürk being grabbed off off the street.

And we saw how the combination of bureaucratic resources combined with the Department of Homeland Security, specifically Homeland Security Investigations, and then passing that information to the State Department to very quickly decide that these folks should either be detained or deported. So I think we got a massive amount of information in particular from the bench trial that Judge Young held over the summer. 

AL: I want to raise one other point, which is that I’m not sure — and please correct me if I’m wrong — I’m not sure that we’ve seen another federal judge isolate the administration’s use of and what he describes as its weaponization of antisemitism in this way. Which I think, at least for me, is significant given the amount of federal and state legislation moving around adopting this definition of antisemitism, the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition, which they’re talking about a broader, more amorphous form of how the administration has shifted its own definition of antisemitism, but they are effectively one and the same.

I’m wondering if you all can respond to that. 

RK: Yeah. I mean, I think part of that arises from the frankly, astonishing testimony we heard at trial from Senior State Department official John Armstrong, who personally made the decision to revoke Rümeysa Öztürk’s visa, and who authored the memos that went to Secretary [Marco] Rubio recommending that he revoke the green cards of people like Mahmoud Khalil.

What he said on the stand was that on his understanding of antisemitism and support for terrorism — by the way, his understanding matters because apparently there has been no official guidance issued in the State Department or DHS about how to define these incredibly controversial concepts. And on his understanding of those terms, criticism of Israel — including its actions in Gaza — is grounds for deporting non-citizens. In fact, he said that criticism of the Trump administration’s policies or actions toward Israel may qualify. And I think Young was really taken aback by that admission and made clear both at trial and in his decision that, in his view, those definitions sweep in a great deal of constitutionally protected and legitimate political speech. 

AL: Which is what we’ve been saying this whole time, right? Like this is not shocking to anyone who has been covering these cases or writing about this phenomenon of this weaponization of antisemitism. This is the conversation we’ve been having for so long, but the fact that, again, this is being issued in a federal court and it’s being issued also by Reagan appointee, which is not, whatever that significant, but will it have an effect, I guess, is the question. Will this have any material effect on the cases of students like Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi?

RK: I mean, I think it gives them additional ammunition in their own cases against the Trump administration on which they’re challenging as unlawful their arrests and detentions; and the administration’s attempted deportation of them.

Because the government, in their cases, has been claiming that they have this secret evidence that establishes that in fact they were targeting these individuals based not only on their political speech, but based on other legitimate factors. And Judge Young, he saw all of the underlying evidence from those cases, and he emphatically reached the conclusion that these individuals were being targeted based on their political viewpoints alone.

SM: Yeah. And there are other folks who are still in ICE detention who were targeted this way. Leqaa Kordia, who’s in detention in Prairieland, where I think Dr. [Badar Khan] Suri was also held. [Kordia] is still trying to make arguments both in federal court and in immigration court, that she should be released either on bond or or in the habeas petition because her detention is unconstitutional is her argument.

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I do think this ruling will be cited frequently in those challenges, including because in the immigration proceedings that are ongoing for, I believe, all of these individuals, the burden is typically on the non-citizen to at different stages of the immigration proceedings. And I think what Judge Young really did by putting together this authoritative timeline of how this policy played out over these cases is show how thin the evidence was against some of these most high-profile cases where the secretary of homeland security was going on Twitter to make all kinds of claims that they couldn’t back up in in court.

And so I think that does just cast significant doubt in every other case about the strength of evidence used to detain other people. 

AL: Is that enough to stop them from going after other pro-Palestine student activists or —

RK: Well, with any other administration, we would expect this decision to have an immediate impact.

I think what will be crucial here is the precise relief that we ultimately get from Judge Young. That’s why we’ll be vigorously arguing that we need robust relief that will get this administration to cease and desist from its efforts to exact retribution on people for their political speech. 

SM: And I think Judge Young closes by asking if, essentially, the American people will sleepwalk into fascism. He, I think, is very much throwing up a flare that this one ruling — even if he can fashion the perfect “was targeted” remedy — is not going to fix the situation we find ourselves in. He didn’t say what else was necessary, but I think implicit in that acknowledgment from the judge is that it will take political action. [That] political leaders need to stop looking to courts — I mean, the courts need to keep issuing clear-eyed rulings like this — but that’s not the way that you stop an administration like this one from doing blatantly unconstitutional things. It requires other levers.

RK: I think that’s such an important observation.

I read his conclusion to really be a call to arms: a recognition that if we are to protect our most fundamental freedoms, if we’re to protect our democracy, then we, all of us, need to show up, stand up and show courage and meet this moment. And it won’t do for people to sit on the sidelines. 

SM: And I do think in his own way, he was calling out conservatives. I mean, he closed his opinion by quoting from Reagan, who appointed him, who gave a speech saying that freedom needed to be protected every generation. Essentially, that we can’t bank on freedom just continuing just because we’ve had it in the past. So I think he’s leaning into his own bonafide as a conservative judge, I think is a signal across the political spectrum.

AL: We’re going to leave it there. Thank you both for joining me on the Intercept Briefing. 

RK: Thanks, Akela. 

SM: Thanks. 

AL: Before we close, a quick update on last week’s episode. We spoke to Tommy Marcus, who joined the Global Sumud Flotilla convoy delivering food and medical supplies to Gaza.

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On Wednesday, Israeli forces intercepted the fleet of small boats as it attempted to break the aid blockade. Marcus now appears to be among the hundreds of volunteers Israel is detaining, according to organizers.  

We’ll continue to follow the story. 

That does it for this episode of The Intercept Briefing. 

But we want to hear from you. 

Share your story with us at 530-POD-CAST. That’s 530-763-2278. You can also email us at podcasts at the intercept dot com. 

This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Sumi Aggarwal is our executive producer. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. Will Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow. 

Slip Stream provided our theme music.

You can support our work at theintercept.com/join. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. And tell all of your friends about us, and better yet, leave us a rating or a review to help other listeners find our reporting.

Until next time, I’m Akela Lacy. 

Thanks for listening.

The post Government Shutdown and Free Speech Showdown appeared first on The Intercept.

The letters, which were sent on October 14 to the presidents and provosts of Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Minnesota State, and Tufts universities, called out school officials and U.S. law enforcement agencies for cracking down on student protesters and subsequently using immigration authorities to single out foreign students for detention and deportation.

“We are highly concerned over reports that students were arrested, suspended, and expelled, and lost their university accommodation, campus access, and their immigration status merely because of assembling peacefully to express their solidarity with victims of the conflict in Gaza,” wrote the group of U.N. special rapporteurs, independent experts who monitor human rights violations. “We fear that such pressure and public attacks on scholars and institutions can result in repression of free expression and in self-censorship, thus damaging academic freedom and the autonomy of universities.”

The letters suggest the international body has taken notice of domestic protest repression on U.S. campuses. Since President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration has weaponized immigration authorities against international students and investigations over alleged antisemitism at universities across the country — ratcheting up a crackdown on student protests for Palestine that began under former President Joe Biden.

The letter to Columbia highlighted the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Leqaa Kordia, as well as the attempted arrest of Yunseo Chung. (Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Khalil and Mahdawi both spent months in detention earlier this year. Kordia, a Palestinian student who was arrested on March 8, was still in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody as recently as December 8, according to a report by Drop Site News.

“It has been reported that the conditions of Ms. Kordia’s detention are particularly severe. Due to overcrowding, she sleeps on the floor where cockroaches and other bugs abound, and many showers and sinks do not work,” the authors wrote. “She is also not given materials her faith requires to have to pray, and she is not allowed to wear a hijab in the presence of men as her religion requires.”

The authors of the letter include Mary Lawlor, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Farida Shaheed, the special rapporteur on the right to education; Irene Khan, the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Gina Romero, the special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; and Gehad Madi, the special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. Representatives of the U.N. rapporteurs who drafted the letters did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

The U.N. letter also highlighted the cases of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts who was snatched by masked ICE agents on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25; Badar Khan Suri, the Indian-born researcher at Georgetown arrested on March 17; Momodou Taal, a Cornell grad student with dual citizenship from the United Kingdom and Gambia who was ordered to turn himself in to ICE agents on March 22; and Mohammed Hoque, a Minnesota State student arrested at his home on March 28. (Cornell, Minnesota State, and Tufts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

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In the letter, the authors singled out Columbia for bowing to pressure from the Trump administration, which they said set a standard that chilled speech nationwide.

“The restrictive measures at Columbia University reflect nationwide structural changes at universities to suppress Palestine solidarity movements,” the authors wrote.

In each letter, the authors asked the universities to provide information on the allegations of mistreatment, any measures taken by the schools to protect the rights of its students and scholars, and details on how the schools plan to safeguard the rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

“Students report self-censoring political expression, and particularly international students are withdrawing from activism due to deportation fears,” the authors wrote. “Campus organizing has diminished significantly, with activists reporting less attendance from international students who had to quit their activism because of the potential risk of repercussions. This intimidating effect extends beyond issues concerning Israel and Palestine, with students reporting reluctance to engage in any political activism.”

The post U.N. Experts Blast U.S. Universities for Human Rights Violations Against Gaza Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.

Judge William G. Young, a Reagan appointee to the federal court in Massachusetts, found that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, along with their subordinates, “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech.”

“This is a new invention that in important ways goes beyond its closest analogues in the Red Scare,” Young wrote in his 161-page opinion, calling the case “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court.”

The American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, and the Middle East Studies Association filed a lawsuit against Rubio, Noem, and other Trump administration officials in March, following the arrests of Mahmoud Khalil and other campus activists. 

AAUP alleged that these arrests were part of an “ideological deportation” policy, which was aimed at chilling speech on campuses nationwide.

Young’s ruling was a significant departure from restrained judicial style. The judge even framed his opinion as a response to an anonymous, hand-scrawled postcard he received over the summer, an image of which is on the ruling’s cover page: “TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS… WHAT DO YOU HAVE?”

Young took issue with the federal government’s heavy reliance on the pro-Israel blacklist network Canary Mission in targeting advocates for Palestine, as officials from the State Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed during a nine-day trial over the summer. 

Agents used an “elastic” definition of antisemitism in their review, Young wrote, which included protected speech critiquing Israel’s war on Gaza.

In an “essentially frictionless” review process, Young wrote, ICE agents referred Khalil and others to the State Department, which quickly signed off on deporting them. Young found “virtually no evidence that anyone along the way seriously questioned whether pure political speech in support of Palestine or against Israel could be construed as support for terrorism.”

“This is a historic ruling that should have immediate implications for the Trump administration’s policies,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which represented the plaintiffs, in a press release. “If the First Amendment means anything, it means the government can’t imprison people simply because it disagrees with their political views. We welcome the court’s reaffirmation of this basic idea, which is foundational to our democracy.”

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Young agreed with the plaintiffs that this review process and the high-profile arrests of campus activists amounted to an unconstitutional policy designed and executed “intentionally to chill the speech of other would be pro-Palestine and anti-Israel speakers.”

At one point, he called testimony from ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, about agents’ purported need to wear masks “disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable. ICE goes masked for a single reason — to terrorize Americans into quiescence.”

“To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan,” he wrote. “In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.”

Young ordered subsequent hearings to decide what should be the appropriate remedy for these constitutional violations.

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Addressing his ruling to “Mr. or Ms. Anonymous” from the postcard, Young closed with his fears for the path ahead for our democracy, and a question: “I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.”

“Is he correct?” Young wondered. 

The post Judge Finds Rubio and Noem Intentionally Targeted Pro-Palestine Activists to Chill Speech appeared first on The Intercept.