Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate facing deportation over his pro-Palestinian activism on campus, has outlined the "irreparable harm" caused by his continued detention, as a federal judge weighs his release.
Khalil said in court filings unsealed on Thursday that the "most immediate and visceral harms" he has faced in his months detained in Louisiana relate to missing the birth of his first child in April.
"Instead of holding my wife’s hand in the delivery room, I was crouched on a detention centre floor, whispering through a crackling phone line as she laboured alone," the 30-year-old legal US resident wrote. "When I heard my son’s first cries, I buried my face in my arms so no one would see me weep."
He also cited potentially "career-ending" consequences from the ordeal, noting that Oxfam International has already rescinded a job offer for a policy advisor position.
Even his mother’s visa to come to the US to help care for his infant son is now under federal review, Khalil said.
"As someone who fled prosecution in Syria for my political beliefs, for who I am, I never imagined myself to be in immigration detention, here in the United States," he wrote. "Why should protesting this Israel government’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians result in the erosion of my constitutional rights?"
Khalil’s 13-page statement was among a number of legal declarations his lawyers filed highlighting the wide-ranging negative impacts of his arrest.
Dr Noor Abdalla, his US citizen wife, described the challenges of not having her husband by her side during their son’s birth and the early weeks of his life.
Students and professors at Columbia wrote about the chilling effect Khalil's arrest has had on campus life, with people afraid to attend protests or join groups perceived as critical of the Trump administration.
Last week, a federal judge in New Jersey said the Trump administration’s effort to deport Khalil likely violates the Constitution.
Judge Michael Farbiarz wrote that the government’s primary justification for removing Khalil — that his beliefs may pose a threat to US foreign policy — could open the door to vague and arbitrary enforcement.
Khalil was detained by federal immigration agents on 8 March in the lobby of his university-owned apartment — the first arrest under Trump’s expanding crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
First of many
His arrest was the first in a long crackdown on pro-Palestine voices in the US.
A few days after Khalil's arrest, Trump's claim came due after another pro-Palestine student, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University, was arrested. His attorney said he was arrested because of the Palestinian identity of his wife. He was released in May.
After the arrest of Suri, authorities went after another pro-Palestine student, Momodou Taal, asking him to turn himself in.
On March 25, Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student, said she sued the Trump administration to stop her deportation from the US over her participation in a pro-Palestine protest last Spring.
Also on March 25, Rumeysa Ozturk, who is a Tufts University PhD student, was kidnapped in broad daylight by US authorities over criticising Israel's carnage in Gaza.
 
On April 14, authorities arrested Mohsen Mahdawi during his citizenship interview before he was released on April 30.
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Source: TRT