The events of recent weeks are so disturbing that they are worth recounting in detail. Mahmoud Khalil was returning home with his pregnant wife on the evening of March 8, 2025, when four plainclothes officers with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) informed him he was under arrest. As his wife refused to leave his side, the officers threatened to arrest her, too. Khalil was whisked away, first to New Jersey, then to Louisania. Following his arrest, it was announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was seeking to deport Khalil using a vague McCarthy-era law that allows the US government to expel someone if the secretary of state finds their presence could have adverse consequences for US foreign policy.

Khalil is a US permanent resident, meaning he has many of the same legal rights as US citizens. In seeking to revoke his residency status, the Trump administration has not alleged Khalil has committed a single crime. Instead, they’ve made clear they are targeting him for his activism for Palestine.

Khalil’s grandparents were expelled from their homes during the Nakba. He was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. When Columbia students responded to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza by demanding their own school divest from Israel, Khalil served as a negotiator between the student protesters and the administration.