CNN
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With him being detained for free for over 100 days and the threat of deportation looming on him, Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil is convinced he will ultimately win.
In an interview with CNN’s Christian Amanpoor, Halil, who is now back with her young family, describes the pain of months at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Center and the pain of being denied permission to attend at the birth of her son.
“It was a very inhuman experience for anyone not accused of a crime,” said Khalil, a green cardholder who had no formal criminal or civil charges against him.
His detention sparked rage across the United States.
On Thursday, Halil’s lawyers filed a claim against the Trump administration for $20 million in damages, alleging that he was mistakenly imprisoned, charged, charged and portrayed as an anti-Semitic man as the government tried to expel his role in the campus protests against Israeli war in Gaza. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security in a statement called Khalil’s allegation, “absurd.”
He was arrested outside his apartment on the Columbia University campus in New York City in March. He went home from dinner with his wife and felt like an “adult.”
Plaincross agents took him to the lobby of his building and he said he threatened his wife with an arrest if she didn’t leave him. CNN previously reported that ice agents had no warrants during Khalil’s arrest.
Halil was one of the first in a series of famous arrests of pro-Palestinian students when President Donald Trump’s administration moved to crack down on anti-Semitism on university campuses. Born in a Syrian refugee camp before graduating from Colombia, the 30-year-old played a key role in negotiating on behalf of the university’s pro-Palestinian protesters.
After being taken, he was first moved to New Jersey, then to Texas, and finally to an ice detention center in Louisiana. He was more than 1,000 miles away from his wife, a US citizen.
“I literally moved from one place to another, like an object,” he recalled, referring to the relocation to a different detention facility. “I was always tied up,” he said.
But he said his days at the detention center never ruined his spirit.
“From the moment I was taken into custody, I knew I would win in the end,” he said.
“What I simply did is protest the genocide.”
Israel repeatedly pushed back to claims that the war in Gaza was genocide.
He said the food at the Louisiana ice center was almost “inedible.” He said he switched to a vegetarian option after being served meat that caused him to vomit.
The center was extremely cold, but repeated requests for blankets were ignored, he said.
“The moment you enter such an ice facility, your rights literally remain outside,” he told Amanpur.
CNN previously contacted ICE to comment on the terms of the Louisiana facility. That policy indicates that detention is non-reconciliation. Geo Group, the company that runs the facility where Khalil was held, has denied allegations of abuse.
The Trump administration argued that Halil’s actions pose a threat to his foreign policy goals to combat anti-Semitism. His lawyers pushed back the allegations vigorously.
After accusing him of being a Hamas sympathizer, the Trump administration called for Khalil’s deportation, said it was justified because he did not reveal his relationship with the two organizations in his application. His lawyers say the argument is weak.
Halil told Amanpool that the Trump administration’s claims against him were “absurd.”
“They want to fuse Palestinian rights speeches with those that support terrorism. That’s completely wrong,” he said.
“It’s the message that even if you are a legal resident, they want to create an example from me.
Halil told The Associated Press that if his claims against the Trump administration are successful, he plans to share the settlement with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” efforts to curb Palestinian speech. Instead of reconciliation, he accepts an official apology and also accepts changes to the administration’s deportation policy.
In the inedible food, the cold, and the fear that he might be deported, one moment stood out as the most difficult to endure. The immigration officer has denied permission to attend at the birth of his firstborn.
In May, Halil’s lawyers said Louisiana Center officials cited “blanket contact visit policy” and unspecified security concerns as part of their reasons for rejecting the request.
“I missed the birth of my child. I think that was the most difficult moment in my life… We made so many requests to be present in that moment,” Halil said.
“I don’t think I can forgive them to take that moment from me.”
“The first time I saw my child was literally through thick glass, and he was literally in front of me.
“And when the moment came to hold him, it was a court order to spend an hour with him.”
