The poor, poor darling. Natural consequences are no fun at all.
[IsraelTimes] Syrian-born US resident and anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil was first student arrested under Trump’s expanded immigration crackdown on Gaza war protesters
A Columbia graduate facing deportation over his pro-Paleostinian activism on campus has outlined the "irreparable harm" caused by his continued detention as a federal judge weighs his release.
Mahmoud Khalil
…at age 30 the Damascus-born Palestinian (with dual Algerian citizenship through his mother, whose family were revolutionaries back home) got a Masters in Paleo protest from Columbia, applying his training as Apartheid Divest’s frontman supporting Hamas since 10/8/2023, which overlapped his work as a UNWRA political affairs officer. Since his arrest by ICE he’s been represented by 19 attorneys, including CUNY law prof Ramzi Kassem, himself a Paleo student activist at Columbia back in the day, and the ACLU. Mr. Khalil worked his way through college in Beirut as a popular, MI-6 vetted local staffer at the British embassy leading soft power projects, on one of which he worked with his future wife, there for the summer on scholarship. No doubt it was for her sake he went to Columbia instead of Oxford…
said in court filings unsealed Thursday that the "most immediate and visceral harms" he’s faced in his months detained in Louisiana relate to missing out on 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 center floor, whispering through a crackling phone line as she labored 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He also cited potentially "career-ending" harms from the ordeal, noting that Oxfam International has already rescinded a job offer to serve as a policy adviser.
”Having a Hamas supporter on staff, especially someone so handsome, with such a diverse and exotic background, is a plus. But we simply can’t have a convicted terrorist — it would bring the wrong kind of attention, my dear. It isn’t at all the done thing.”
Even his mother’s visa to come to the US to help care for his infant son was now under federal review, Khalil said.
Superior efficiency at the US State Department visa section? Kudos to the unnamed staffer who done good.
"As someone who fled prosecution in Syria for my political beliefs,
…and which particular beliefs were those, pray tell? Not all persecution by totalitarian regimes is necessarily wrong…
for who I am, I never imagined myself to be in immigration detention, here in the United States," he wrote.
No doubt.
”Why should protesting this Israeli government’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Paleostinians result in the erosion of my constitutional rights?"
It wasn’t the words, dear boy. It was leading the harassment and physical abuse of Jews, Zionists, and those near them that caught the attention of the new Trump government. That kind of thing is very illegal over here, though your home culture lauds and requires it. Consider this a learning experience.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin responded that Khalil should simply self-deport, taking advantage of the administration’s offer of $1,000 and a free flight to those in the country illegally who use its CBP Home app. Khalil obtained a green card, but the Trump administration says it is revoking it.
*Snicker*
Khalil’s 13-page statement was among a number of legal declarations his lawyers filed highlighting the wide-ranging negative impacts of his arrest.
Given there are nineteen of them, they’ll have had to exert themselves to justify the boodles of money the usual Progressive NGOs have no doubt been shoveling in their direction.
Dr. Noor Abdalla,
…a Lebanese-American dentist of 28, and a hijabi. One does wonder who her family connections are, as nothing at all has been mentioned…
his US citizen wife, described the challenges of not having her husband to help navigate their son’s birth and the first weeks of his young life.
Think of all those Israeli wives, Jews and non-Jews alike who have been doing without their husbands since the IDF called them up after 10/7/2023, and be grateful your husband’s part in the war is both shorter, not likely to be deadly, and has a predictable end.
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 participate in groups that can be viewed as critical of the Trump administration.
Who woulda thunk they were actually trainable! This is a very exciting discovery, indeed.
Last week, a federal judge in New Jersey said the administration’s effort to deport Khalil likely violates the Constitution.
That’s just dumb.
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 March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under Trump’s widening crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s war against terror groups in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression
and disproportionate response
...
