An extremely serious—and potentially decisive—legal and political battle is unfolding right now over the Trump/MAGA fascists’ illegal and illegitimate arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, who remains imprisoned in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana at this writing.
Mahmoud Khalil is a 30-year-old Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and a green card–holding permanent legal resident of the U.S. He’s also a recent graduate of Columbia University who has played a leading role in the righteous and courageous student uprising against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
At the direction of Trump and his top officials, Khalil was snatched by ICE agents on Saturday, March 8. He was outside his residence—in Columbia University housing—as his wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant, watched in horror.
Mahmoud’s Kidnapping: Nazi Gestapo Tactics from Start to Finish
The ICE agents claimed they had a warrant for Mahmoud’s arrest on their phones, but they refused to show it to him. Mahmoud was not charged with or accused of any crime. ICE claimed he was being detained because his student visa was being revoked. When he told them he didn’t have a student visa because he was a green card holder, they said the green card was being revoked too. When his wife asked why he was being taken, they threatened her with arrest if she didn’t “cooperate.”
ICE refused to tell him—or inform his wife—where he was being taken. ICE took Mahmoud first to an ICE detention facility in New York, then one in New Jersey. On Sunday he was flown to an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana where he’s still being held. The “facility”—that is, prison—is 144 miles from any urban area, 1,300 miles from his family and legal team, and notorious for “systemic human rights abuses against immigrants detained and disappeared.”1 Mahmoud was handed a notice to appear at a March 27 deportation hearing and told to sign it.2 He refused to sign it when ICE—illegally—prevented him from speaking privately to his attorneys, a prohibition that went on for five days until a judge ordered such a call be allowed.3
The Trump Regime’s Fascist IL-Legal Reasoning
Supporters of Mahmoud Khalil gather in Foley Square, outside the Manhattan federal court, New York, March 12, 2025. Photo: AP
The next day Trump bragged about Mahmoud’s kidnapping, and spelled out the fascist logic of his arrest: “Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come.”
The deportation document given to Mahmoud stated, “The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
This argument is a giant step toward criminalizing and suppressing any criticism or protest against any U.S. actions around the world, and a lawless ripping up of basic rights that are supposed to be guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
A Turning Point and Leap Toward the Consolidation of Fascism
In an important new statement, RefuseFascism.org sums up the turning point Mahmoud’s arrest and threatened deportation represents:
Khalil’s arrest is a turning point. It is a leap towards the consolidation of a different kind of country – a fascist America. When the rule of law becomes moot – when what is permissible to speak or do is at the say so of Trump and his minions – that must be the wake-up call for us act as one. When the business of the government is bulldozing the rule of law and cementing a fascist order, there must be no business as usual.
When tens of millions of immigrants and refugees face demonization, arrest in the dark of night, detention in horrid conditions, deportation with families torn apart – that is a moment when the humanity, the morality, of everyone is put the test. To stand aside because you are not immediately affected is to lose your humanity and to pave the way for greater horrors. That is the lesson of Nazi Germany in the 1930’s.
The Fierce Legal Battle Now Unfolding… with Extremely High Stakes
On Sunday, March 9, the day after Mahmoud was taken, his legal team filed a petition in federal court for the Southern District of New York. The team demanded a hearing to seek his release and return to New York, and an order to prevent the government from taking further action against Mahmoud. On Monday Judge Jesse Furman ordered the government not to remove Mahmoud from the U.S. while his case is pending.
A court hearing took place on March 12 concerning how to proceed in the case, and very importantly, over a thousand people gathered outside to support Mahmoud and demand his freedom. (At the hearing, Judge Furman also ordered ICE to allow private calls between Mahmoud and his legal team.)
Mahmoud’s team has filed further motions challenging his detention and the Trump regime’s legal claims, arguing Mahmoud’s “detention violates his constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, and goes beyond the government’s legal authority.”4
The Trump fascist regime continues to insist Mahmoud remain in Louisiana and face a deportation hearing on March 27.
It is likely that further hearings will be held in Manhattan in the days and weeks ahead, but so far no dates have been announced. For now, Mahmoud remains in ICE custody in Louisiana.
But there is much about this case and how it will unfold that remains clouded in uncertainty, in large part due to the lies, misinformation and stonewalling from the Trump/MAGA fascist regime.
The Nationwide Outpouring for Mahmoud and the Urgent Need for the Struggle to Broaden, Deepen and Become More Determined
There has been an outpouring of protest at the Trump/MAGA fascist regime and in support of Mahmoud. This has been concentrated in New York City, where there’ve been numerous protests, but is also finding echoes across the country. Go HERE for the “Sights and Sounds” of these nationwide protests.
All this has marked an important advance in the struggle against this fascist regime, but it must be much more broadly supported, widely spread and strongly built upon. Now it’s crucial that we take the struggle further, as RefuseFascism.org argues:
Over the next 2 weeks culminating on March 27 when Mahmoud Khalil’s hearing is scheduled, our struggle must broaden, deepen and become more determined. Campuses need to roil with people standing up for Mahmoud Khalil and against collaboration with the Trump fascist regime.
Each day should bring more people from all nationalities, races, genders, and all walks of life into the streets and public square. People in every institution – government and non-government need to refuse to cooperate and carry out the illegal and illegitimate orders of the Trump regime, gaining heart from and adding to the power of the people in the streets.
Trump’s Fascist War on Protest and Dissent
In arresting and threatening to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump regime argues that it may deport people if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe their presence in the country “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Meanwhile Trump’s press secretary has demanded that Columbia University identify other pro-Palestinian protesters for the Department of Homeland Security, threatening that Trump expects “all America’s colleges and universities to comply with this administration’s policy.”
This is a recipe for criminalizing and suppressing any criticism or protest against U.S. actions around the world, and for direct fascist control of the universities. And such a campaign is already underway.
Here are just some of the outrageous assaults—by the government and universities—that have taken place over the past week or two:
- The day before he was kidnapped, Mahmoud emailed Columbia asking for protection because he was being targeted in a reactionary doxxing and smear campaign, but Columbia has shamefully offered him no assistance or support.
- ICE has detained one other Columbia student for protesting in support of Palestine, and another student has “self-deported” out of the U.S. after ICE had come to her residence.
- March 14: Columbia announced it had expelled, suspended and revoked the diplomas of a number of students who took part in a campus antiwar protest last spring.
- Yale University suspended Helyeh Doutaghi, an international law scholar and outspoken defender of Palestinian rights, after a far-right website called Jewish Onliner accused her of ties to a group on a U.S. sanctions list, apparently referring to the advocacy organization Samidoun. Doutaghi wrote, “I am being targeted for one reason alone: for speaking the truth about the genocide of the Palestinian people that Yale University is complicit in.”
- Betar, a fascist, pro-Israel group which targeted Mahmoud Khalil, claims to have sent “thousands” of names from its extensive “deportation list” to Trump officials
- Reuters is reporting, “The US Justice Department is examining whether student protests at Columbia University over the genocide in Gaza violated federal terrorism laws, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Friday.”