NEW YORK: A Columbia University student arrested and threatened with deportation for his role in campus protests against Israel gave his first public statement Tuesday, saying that his detention is indicative of \u201canti-Palestinian racism\u201d demonstrated by both the Trump and Biden administrations.
\nIn a letter dictated from a Louisiana immigration lockup and released by his attorney, the student, Mahmoud Khalil, said he is being targeted as part of a larger effort to repress Palestinian voices.
\n\u201cMy unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the US has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cFor decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand US laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.\u201d
\nKhalil and the federal government have been sparring in court over the Trump administration\u2019s move to ship him halfway across the country to the lockup in Louisiana.
\nThe government says he could not be detained at an immigration facility near where he was originally arrested in part because of a bedbug infestation, so they sent him to Louisiana. Khalil says there was no such discussion of bedbugs and he feared he was being immediately deported.
\nKhalil said in a declaration filed in Manhattan federal court Monday that while he was held overnight at a detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, \u201cI did not hear anyone mention bedbugs.\u201d
\nIn court papers over the weekend, lawyers for the Justice Department also blamed his move on overcrowded facilities in the Northeast.
\nKhalil made the statement about bedbugs in an exhibit attached to court papers in which his lawyers asked that he be freed on bail while the courts decide whether his arrest violated the First Amendment.
\nThe lawyers have also asked a judge to widen the effect of any order to stop the US government from \u201carresting, detaining, and removing noncitizens who engage in constitutionally protected expressive activity in the United States in support of Palestinian rights or critical of Israel.\u201d
\nKhalil said in court records that he was put in a van when he was taken away from the Elizabeth facility and he asked if he was being returned to FBI headquarters in Manhattan, where he was taken immediately after his arrest.
\n\u201cI was told, \u2018no, we are going to JFK Airport.\u2019 I was afraid they were trying to deport me,\u201d he recalled.
\nOf his time spent at the Elizabeth facility, he wrote: \u201cI was in a waiting room with about ten other people. We slept on the ground. Even though it was cold inside the room, there were no beds, mattresses, or blankets.\u201d
\nKhalil, in the letter released by his attorney on Tuesday, said \u201cI see in my circumstances similarities to Israel\u2019s use of administrative detention \u2013 imprisonment without trial or charge \u2013 to strip Palestinians of their rights.\u201d
\n\u201cFor Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace,\u201d he said.
\nIn the weekend court papers, lawyers for the Justice Department gave a detailed description of Khalil\u2019s March 8 arrest and his transport from Manhattan to Elizabeth and then to Kennedy International Airport in New York the next day for his transfer to Louisiana, where he has been held since.
\n\u201cKhalil could not be housed at Elizabeth Detention Facility long-term due to a bedbug issue, so he remained there until his flight to Louisiana,\u201d the lawyers wrote. They said he was at the facility from 2:20 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. on March 9.
\nThe lawyers have asked that legal issues be addressed by federal judges in New Jersey or Louisiana rather than New York. A Manhattan federal judge has not yet ruled on the request.
\nKhalil\u2019s lawyers, who oppose transferring the case, wrote in a submission Monday that the transfer to Louisiana was \u201cpredetermined and carried out for improper motives\u201d rather than because of a bedbug infestation.
\nDespite the bedbug claim, the Elizabeth Detention accepted at least four individuals for detention from March 6 through last Thursday and Khalil himself saw men being processed for detention while he was there, they wrote.
\nKhalil, in the letter released by his attorney on Tuesday, also referenced a wave of Israeli strikes across Gaza \u2014 ending the ceasefire on Monday night \u2014 and called it a \u201cmoral imperative\u201d to continue push for freedom for Palestinians.
\n\u201cWith January\u2019s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK: A Columbia University student arrested and threatened with deportation for his role in campus protests against Israel gave his first public statement Tuesday, saying that his detention is indicative of \u201canti-Palestinian racism\u201d demonstrated by both the Trump and Biden administrations. In a letter dictated from a Louisiana immigration lockup and released by his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":78615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78616,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78602\/revisions\/78616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}