ICE Barred Mahmoud Khalil From Being With His Wife as She Gave Birth
"He had certainly hoped and expected that the government would show some humanity. But they did not," Khalil's attorney said in a statement.
Photo Credit: Family of Mahmoud Khalil via WWLTV ImmigrationLatestPolitics
On Monday morning, Noor Abdalla, the wife of Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, shared that she had given birth to their first child, and that Khalil’s request to be present for the birth was denied in less than an hour.
Khalil was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March in front of his wife, who was then eight months pregnant. Since then, Khalil has been detained in a Louisiana facility, over 1,000 miles from Abdalla, due to the Trump administration’s baseless argument that he is a threat to U.S. foreign policy. On April 11, an immigration judge ruled that Khalil is eligible to be deported (despite the fact that he is a green card holder and a legal resident), primarily citing a two-page memo written by Secretary of State Marco Rubio which alleged that his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University was antisemitic.
The degradation being perpetrated against Khalil has continued, according to Abdalla’s most recent statement.
“I welcomed our son into the world earlier today without Mahmoud by my side,” she wrote in a statement released on Monday. “Despite our request for ICE to allow Mahmoud to attend the birth, they denied his temporary release to meet our son. This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer.”