Concord, NH (AP) – A Palestinian activist who was detained for more than three months pushed his son’s stroller with one hand and pumped his fist in the air with the other while the supporters welcomed him at home on Saturday.
Look at Khalil’s remarks in the video player above.
Mahmoud Khalil welcomed friends and spoke briefly to journalists on Saturday at Newark International Airport in New Jersey one day after leaving a federal immigration establishment in Louisiana. Former student graduated from the University of Columbia and symbol of the repression of President Donald Trump on campus demonstrations, he promised to continue to protest against the War of Israel in Gaza.
WATCH: “Justice has prevailed but it’s long awaited,” says Mahmoud Khalil after his orderly release
“The US government is funding this genocide and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he said. “This is why I will continue to protest with each of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would always speak for Palestine. ”
Khalil, a legal American resident whose woman gave birth during her 104 days of detention, said he would also speak for immigrants he had left in the detention center.
“Whether you are a citizen, immigrant, anyone in this country, you are not illegal. It doesn’t make you less a human,” he said.
The 30 -year -old international business student has not been accused of having violated the laws during Columbia demonstrations. However, the government said that the non-citizens participating in such demonstrations should be expelled from the United States to express points of view that the administration considers anti-Semitic and “pro-Hamas”, referring to the Palestinian militant group which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Khalil was released after the American district judge Michael Farbiarz said that it would be “very unusual” that the government continues to have a legal resident who was unlikely to flee and had not been accused of any violence. Friday evening, the government made an opinion that it attracted the release of Khalil.
Joining Khalil at the airport, American representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York said that her detention had violated the first amendment and was “an affront to each American”.
“He was accused, without foundation, of horrible allegations simply because the Trump administration and our global establishment do not agree with his political speech,” she said.
“The Trump administration knows that it is leading a losing legal battle,” added Ocasio-Cortez. “They violate the law and know that they violate the law.”