'Bring Him Home': Mahmoud Khalil's Wife Describes 'Nightmare' Arrest, Demands His Safe Return

When legal resident and Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents on Saturday, his 8-months pregnant wife was with him. In a statement released Tuesday, Khalil's wife recounted the couple's encounter with DHS and begged for her husband's release.

"I demand the U.S. government release him, reinstate his green card, and bring him home," said Khalil's wife, who is not named in the statement.

Khalil, who completed his graduate coursework at Columbia University in December and played a prominent role in pro-Palestine protests at the campus last year, was confronted by immigration agents on March 8 who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke his student visa. Khalil's lawyer told the agents that Khalil has a green card, and the agents said that that had been revoked, too, according to Khalil's attorney.

"This last week has been a nightmare," said Khalil's wife, who said that Mahmoud had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest and asked the university for legal support because he had been the target of an "intense and targeted doxxing campaign." That email went unanswered, she said.

"Anti-Palestinian organizations were spreading false claims about my husband that were simply not based in reality," she said.

The couple was confronted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after coming home from an Iftar dinner in the later evening on Saturday. An officer told Khalil's wife to go upstairs, but she refused, according to the statement.

"The officers later barricaded Mahmoud from me," she said. "We were not shown any warrant and the ICE officers hung up the phone on our lawyer. When my husband attempted to give me his phone so I could speak with our lawyer, the officers got increasingly aggressive, despite Mahmoud being fully cooperative."

She said that the officers handcuffed Khalil and forced him into an unmarked vehicle. "Watching this play out in front of me was traumatizing: It felt like a scene from a movie I never signed up to watch," she said. "I am pleading with the world to continue to speak up against his unjust and horrific detention by the Trump administration."

After Khalil was arrested on Saturday he was transferred multiple states away to an ICE processing center in Jena, Louisiana.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily halted the Trump administration's effort to deport Khalil, and on Wednesday Khalil's legal defense is set to appear in court for a hearing before that same judge.

"Khalil's abduction, in its cruelty and unlawfulness, has horrified people around the country. Let us be clear: This is what fascism looks like, and it is part of a much broader campaign," said Dima Khalidi, the founder and director of Palestine Legal, in an article for The Nation published Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pledged to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters on university campuses, said Khalil's arrest is "the first arrest of many to come."

The administration accuses Khalil of supporting Hamas, but neither White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, DHS, nor ICE have provided evidence to support their accusations against Khalil, according to CNN.

Reuters reported that the judge could order Khalil's release, but deportation proceedings could still continue in a separate immigration court, teeing up a test of "where immigration courts draw the line between protected free speech and alleged support for groups the United States calls terrorists."