Mahmoud Khalil Describes ICE Detention As A 'Stain' On The U.S.

The activist said he'll use his recent freedom to keep fighting not just for Palestinians, but for immigrants unjustly targeted by the Trump administration.

Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil said that his arrest by federal immigration agents and subsequent monthslong detention felt like he was being kidnapped — and that he will use his recent freedom to continue fighting not just on behalf of Gaza, but also for immigrants unjustly targeted by the United States.

Khalil, 30, was freed on Friday after 104 days of detention at a U.S. Immigration and Customs facility in Jena, Louisiana. The activist was taken from his New York City home in March by ICE agents after leading peaceful protests at Columbia University against Israel’s U.S.-funded campaign of violence in Gaza.

“All the ‘Know Your Rights’ information and fliers I read and familiarized myself with were useless,” Khalil told The New York Times in his first interview since getting released. “There are no rights in such situations.”

The activist told the Times that his arrest reminded him of how the Syrian government operated while he was growing up in Damascus. Khalil fled the country for Lebanon just after turning 18 when he learned that Syrian government agents had disappeared two of his friends.

His detention in March — the initial 30 hours of which he spent completely cut off from communication with his pregnant wife — was the very experience he had tried to flee, he said.