House Democrats demand release of Mahmoud Khalil
A group of Democrats from the US House of Representatives have called on the Trump administration to release pro-Palestinian protestor Mahmour Khalil.
According to The National on March 11th, he was detained on the weekend of the 8th March for his role in protests that took place on Columbia University Campus and has since been held at a migrant centre in Louisiana.
Khalil is a permanent US resident owing to the fact that he possesses a green card.
He was born in Syria and is of Palestinian descent and law-enforcement agents have now claimed to have revoked his US residency permit according to Khalil’s lawyer.
According to a letter signed by 14 House Democrats Khalil has “been denied meaningful access to counsel and any visitation from his family. This is absolutely unacceptable – and illegal.”
The Trump administration has been accused of employing “McCarythist” tactics in order to clamp down on peaceful pro-Palestinian protests.
The letter continued to say that: “This is an attempt to criminalise political protests and is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of everyone in this country.”
However, Trump claims that he will stamp out anti-Semitism on university campuses and even went as far as to accuse Khalil of being a “radical, foreign pro-Hamas student…who was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country.”
Trump has also insisted that Khalil’s arrest will not be the last, promising that many more were to come.
Senior figures in the Trump administration have confirmed that they expect universities to comply in identifying students involved in pro-Palestine, leading many to fear their right to freedom of expression in the US.
Protests took place across Khalil’s home town of New York and friends and peers were eager to speak up for his character and beliefs in the face of the President’s accusations.
A student from Hunter College, New York told reporters that: “He’s doing good work, standing up for our students, standing up for our human rights, standing up for the people of Palestine.”
More than $110,000 has been publicly raised in order to cover Khalil’s legal fees.
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