Local Activists Rally Behind Mahmoud Khalil

Dozens of demonstrators took to the streets of South End on Saturday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student who was arrested earlier this month who now faces deportation for his role helping to organize his own peaceful protests at the college in support of Palestine in 2024. 

The march was one of many that took place in support of Khalil across the country over the weekend. 

Beginning at Wilmore Centennial Park, demonstrators on Saturday also voiced their support for immigrant rights and an end to Israeli apartheid in Israel, with CMPD officers on bikes and motorcycles separating marchers from a sea of bar-hoppers adorned in green celebrating St. Patrick’s Day weekend. 

Dana Alhasan of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) helped organize the march. She and a few others spoke to their fellow demonstrators at the park before the march began.   

“Are we going to allow for the criminalization of free speech to be normal? Or are we going to fight back?” Alhasan asked through her megaphone. “Trump and his billionaires made a mistake in arresting Mahmoud. They thought it would happen in silence, that the people wouldn’t react. But the day after Mahmoud’s arrest, thousands took to the streets in New York and across the US.” 

Another speaker stated, “Students everywhere are afraid right now and reasonably so. We’ve stood up to these institutions for decades in the face of arrest, expulsion and deportation, but when we look at the history of student anti-war, anti-imperialist movements, we can rest assured that the students will always win. 

“The students will never be defeated by those who are trying to scare and silence us,” the speaker continued. “And when institutions that are supposed to protect us team up with the state, we will come back tenfold the next time, because protesting against genocide is not a crime.” 

Read more: UNC Charlotte Encampment Raid Stirs Free Speech Debate on Campus (2024)

Another common phrase repeated throughout the march was “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,” which translates to, “The people united will never be defeated.” It was coined in a 1975 song of the same name by Sergio Ortega Alvarado for his Quilapayún band and has become a rallying cry for activist causes across the globe. The phrase was taken from a speech by 1940’s Colombian political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. 

As the march wound through South End, some bargoers voiced their support to demonstrators passing by, others their disagreement. A group of men dressed head-to-toe in green, one of whom wearing a temporary tattoo of a four-leaf clover on his face, yelled at the group of protesters to “grow up.”

Alhasan and her fellow demonstrators, including organizers with the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, continued on unbothered and promised to continue to do so as the Trump administration continues to ratchet up its aggression against peaceful protest organizers and immigrants. 

“This moment requires each and every one of us to fight and to organize,” Alhasan said. “Only the millions of people together across the country can defeat and win over the fascists! If you value your right to disagree with the government and protest the unjust actions of politicians, then Mahmoud’s fight is your fight.”

The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil

ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil in his Manhattan apartment building on March 8, under orders from the State Department to revoke his student visa. 

After being informed that Khalil was in fact a lawful permanent resident of the US with a green card, officials then decided that his current status would be revoked and transported him to LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, where he was restricted from speaking with his pregnant wife or legal counsel.  

A federal judge halted Khalil’s deportation on March 10 and the case will be decided in the courts. 

Referencing Khalil’s arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted on March 9, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” 

The US government has yet to present evidence that Khalil ever provided any support to Hamas, only that he was involved in peaceful pro-Palestinian protests.  

Still, Rubio doubled down on CBS News’ Face the Nation Sunday, telling host Margaret Brennan “We’re going to keep doing it” in regards to targeting other protesters for deportation. 

Khalil’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the case, stating in agreement with many analysts that the deportation would be a violation of their client’s First Amendment rights and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment 

As pointed out by Gabriel J. Chin, professor of law at UC Davis, the Trump administration has argued that it can deport lawful permanent residents under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that a lawful permanent resident can be deported if the secretary of state has reasonable ground to believe that this person “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” 

Chin goes on to write that U.S. law states that any non-citizen can be deported if the secretary of state and the attorney general jointly determine that the person is associated with terrorism, or poses a threat to the U.S.

This 1952 law, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, was used to deport those who held communist views in the McCarthy hearings or anyone the government deemed “subversive.” 

At the time of writing, Mahmoud Khalil has yet to be charged with any crime but is still in custody.

“This is not what we’re used to in this country,” Amy Greer, one of Khalil’s attorneys, said on NBC’s Top Story with Tom Llamas on March 12, “and it is directly counter to our Constitution that people should just be taken, not heard from again, moved halfway across the country without anybody knowing why or where or how or what the justification is.”

It is unclear when we should expect a ruling from a federal court regarding Khalil’s potential deportation. 

Information regarding future protests can be found at @clt4pali on Instagram.