Pressley, McGovern join calls for ICE to release pro-Palestinian activist and U.S. legal resident

March 11, 2025

Amelia Mason

A group of Democrats is calling on the Trump administration to release Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent pro-Palestinian activist and legal U.S. resident in New York who is being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

Fourteen members of Congress, including Massachusetts Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern, signed a letter released Tuesday in support of the 30-year-old Palestinian Columbia University graduate. Their rebuke accused President Trump of deploying an “authoritarian playbook.”

“We must be extremely clear: this is an attempt to criminalize political protest and is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of everyone in this country,” the letter reads, in part. “Khalil’s arrest is an act of anti-Palestinian racism intended to silence the Palestinian solidarity movement in this country, but this lawless abuse of power and political repression is a threat to all Americans.”

Protesters hold a sign for Mahmoud Khalil in Newark, N.J. on Tuesday. The protest was held in front of Delaney Hall, the proposed site of an immigrant detention center. (Seth Wenig/AP)

Khalil was arrested by ICE agents at his home on the New York City campus on March 8. For two days, his location was unknown, until it was discovered that he had been transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the United States and is married to an American citizen. His wife is eight months pregnant.

On Monday, a judge temporarily blocked the administration from deporting Khalil and ordered a hearing in his case for Wednesday.

Khalil’s arrest marks a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s pledge to target pro-Palestinian student protesters in what it has described as a campaign to eradicate antisemitism on college campuses. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump have signaled that the feds would seek to revoke visas and green cards in order to deport activists.

This week, the Department of Education notified 60 universities that they were under investigation for antisemitic discrimination and harassment, including six colleges in Massachusetts and Columbia University.

A master’s recipient of Columbia’s School of International and Public affairs, Khalil was a visible presence at the Gaza solidarity demonstrations that engulfed the university last year, turning it into the epicenter of protest against the war. He often took on the role of a spokesperson for the student movement and was active as recently as January in a sit-in at Barnard College, protesting the school’s expulsion of demonstrators who disrupted a class on “the history of modern Israel.”

A protester chants during a demonstration in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil on Monday in New York. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

The debate over the war in Gaza opened up deep fissures in the Columbia student body, with accusations of antisemitic and anti-Arab speech on both sides. Some Jewish students supported the protests, while others said they felt school had become unsafe for them. The Columbia Jewish Alumni Association cheered Khalil’s arrest on X, describing him as a “ringleader of the chaos at Columbia.”

A group of Columbia and Barnard professors condemned Khalil’s arrest. On Monday, thousands of New Yorkers took to the streets to protest the activist’s detention.

The Trump administration last week said it canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia over what it called the school's failure to police antisemitism on campus.