Noor Abdalla, the wife of the graduate of the University of Columbia and Palestinian activist detained Mahmoud Khalilgave birth to their first child without her husband after US immigration The authorities denied the couple’s request for their presence.
The couple’s son was born in New York on Monday. Khalil is still in detention in Louisiana for his involvement in Pro-Palestinian demonstrations last spring on the campus of Columbia University.
He asked for two weeks’s leave on Sunday morning, noting that his wife had entered work eight days earlier.
His lawyers said that it would be “open to any combination of conditions” to allow release, including wearing an ankle instructor and participation in checks provided with the immigration authorities.
His request was refused about 30 minutes after his submission.
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Melissa B. Harper, director of the New Orleans field office for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), wrote: “After examining the information submitted and an examination of the case of your client, your request for leave is refused.”
Abdalla said that the decision was “a targeted ice decision to make me, Mahmoud and our son suffered,” reported the Associated Press.
“My son and I should not sail on his first days on Earth without Mahmoud,” she added. “Ice and the Trump administration stole these precious moments from our family to try to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”
Khalil was a leading figure in Pro-Palestinian protests last spring On the campus of Columbia University. He did not participate in the camps to fear that he will threaten his legal status in the country. Nevertheless, it has become a face of the movement, speaking with the media and facing negotiations with the university.
The student of the University of Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil (C), is expressed during a press briefing organized by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who installed a campus on the Morningsoide Heights campus of Columbia University in New York on June 1, 2024. (Photo of Selcuk Acar / Anadolu via Getty Images).
SELCUK ACAR / ANADOLE via Getty Images)
Khalil’s detention was the first of a repression commanded by Trump against student activism and what he claims is an effort to limit the rise of anti -Semitism on university campuses.
He was arrested on March 8 by ice at his home in New York. His wife, an American citizen, was eight months pregnant at the time. Authorities have threatened to expel Khalil, who holds a green card.
After a short visit to a detention center in New Jersey, Khalil was transported in an installation In Jena, Louisiana, where he remains.
The day after her arrest, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said that she had been undertaken “in support of President Trump’s decrees prohibiting anti-Semitism”.
During Columbia demonstrations, Khalil publicly condemned the targeting of Jewish students.
“There is, of course, no place for anti-Semitism,” he told CNN last April. “What we are witnessing is anti-Palestinian feeling that takes different forms and anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism are some of these forms.”
Khalil has not been accused of any criminal activity, but the Trump administration maintains that it should be United States deleted For his beliefs and his condemnation of the treatment by the Palestinians of Israel in Gaza.
Earlier this month, an immigration judge in Louisiana confirmed the government’s position That the presence of Khalil in the United States has posed “potentially serious consequences on foreign policy”, which means that it meets the expulsion requirements.
A Khalil lawyer said the decision would be on the board of directors of immigration.
– with files from the Associated Press
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