Mahmoud Khalil Tells His Story
About this episode
Khalil, a Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia graduate student detained by ICE under a rarely used foreign-policy deportation provision, tells his story: born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, fleeing Assad, work with Jusoor and the British Embassy's Syria office, and marriage to an American dentist. He describes his role as a student negotiator during Columbia's pro-Palestinian protests, then his March 8, 2025 arrest by plainclothes officers, a 30-hour transfer to a Louisiana detention center, missing his son's birth, and his legal fight — with a federal court finding his detention likely unconstitutional. Klein presses him on antisemitism on campus and chants like 'globalize the intifada'; Khalil argues the Trump administration is criminalizing dissent, that immigrants need not perform gratitude by staying silent, and that universities must protect protest speech.