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After 'Heartless' ICE Refusal, Judge Orders Officials to Allow Mahmoud Khalil to See His Family
ICE and a private prison contractor had cited alleged "security concerns" when they refused to allow Khalil see his wife and newborn son.
May 21, 2025
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey ruled Wednesday that immigration officials at a Louisiana detention facility must allow former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil to see his family, after the authorities refused to grant Khalil's request on their own.
Farbiarz found, based on a court filing by Khalil's lawyers, that his wife, Noor Abdalla "is aware of certain facts that would be of assistance to counsel in their current habeas representation of the petitioner before this court."
"The court is inclined to issue an order today... to permit the petitioner, his wife, and the petitioner's lawyers to meet together tomorrow morning at the facility where the petitioner is held," Farbiarz wrote.
Khalil is scheduled to have an immigration hearing Thursday, which Abdalla and her newborn son flew to Louisiana from New York to attend.
The order did not state that a visit specifically for Khalil to spend time with his wife and son should be arranged.
Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, and other groups helping to represent Khalil in his habeas corpus case had submitted a filing with Farbiarz Wednesday, asking him to require LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana to allow Khalil to visit with his family for at least two hours—exactly a month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) refused to allow him to be present for his son's birth—or "at minimum," allow Abdalla to join a contact visit with Khalil's legal team.
"Petitioner's counsel have made repeated requests for a contact visit to occur," wrote the lawyers. "Such a visit is necessary for the most elementary human reasons and given the ongoing strain of his pending habeas corpus petition, the visit is critical to ensure Mr. Khalil, who is an active participant in his legal case, can meaningfully contribute to the proceedings before this court."
The request was rejected on Wednesday morning after Abdalla and her baby had flown more than 1,400 miles for the hearing.
Along with the private prison contractor that runs the facility, GEO Group, ICE had cited "security concerns" when refusing to allow Khalil to see his family.
"The facility's refusal contradicts ICE's own directives, including ICE Directive 11064.3, which affirms the importance of minimizing disruptions to family life and preserving parental rights," said the ACLU in a statement. "The Performance-Based National Detention Standards also explicitly encourage contact visits, especially where young children and long travel distances are involved."
Abdalla said she was "furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just."
"After flying over a thousand miles to Louisiana with our newborn son, his very first flight, all so his father could finally hold him in his arms, ICE has denied us even this most basic human right," said Abdalla. "This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse. And I cannot ignore the echoes of this pain in the stories of Palestinian families, torn apart by Israeli military prisons and bombs, denied dignity, denied life. Our struggle is not isolated. This system is unjust, and we will fight until Mahmoud is home."
Abdalla, a U.S. citizen, was eight months pregnant when immigration agents accosted her and Khalil in March outside their apartment on Columbia's campus and took him away in an unmarked vehicle. He was informed that his green card had been revoked and was taken first to a detention center in New Jersey and then flown to Louisiana, where an immigration judge later ruled that the Trump administration's deportation case against him could go forward. That ruling was handed down despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio's admission that Khalil is not accused of breaking any laws and that he was targeted because his advocacy for Palestinian rights was seen as detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.
"The government chose to arrest and detain Mahmoud thousands of miles away in the Louisiana detention gulags to punish him for his support for Palestinian human rights, and is doubling down on their retaliatory punishment by denying him the most elementary human contact with his wife and child," said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "ICE leadership and elected officials must act to remedy this grotesque and unnecessary inhumanity for Mahmoud—and for all others."
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Columbia President Greeted With Chants of 'Free Mahmoud!' During Graduation Speech
"You arrested us!" graduates shouted at one point in acting president Claire Shipman's address.
May 20, 2025
Columbia University administrators seemed intent on proceeding with an undergraduate commencement ceremony Tuesday as though the Ivy League school hasn't been at the center of student-led anti-genocide protests and government efforts to crack down on free speech for more than a year—but graduating students ensured the school's treatment of student organizers was front-and-center.
As acting president Claire Shipman approached the podium to address students at Columbia College's graduation, she was immediately met with loud booing.
She addressed the response, saying she knows many students feel "some amount of frustration" with her and the administration—but many of the graduates appeared uninterested in hearing from the university leader less than two weeks after she authorized the New York Police Department to enter the campus and arrest dozens of student protesters for occupying the university library in solidarity with Palestinians.
The Trump administration announced shortly after the arrests that they were reviewing the visa status of the student protesters—their latest escalation against pro-Palestinian organizers at the school.
"You arrested us!" graduates shouted at one point in Shipman's address, as she congratulated the Class of 2025 for making it "through one of the most rigorous schools in the world."
Mahmoud Khalil, the 2024 graduate who helped lead negotiations with administrators last year regarding divestment from Israel's military operation in Gaza, was also top-of-mind for many students who started chanting, "Free Mahmoud!" early in Shipman's speech.
"The work of your generation will be to shape these interesting times," Shipman said as the chants rang out.
More than two months after immigration agents arrested Khalil outside his on-campus apartment, he remains in detention in a Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. University trustees allegedly gave Khalil's name to the Trump administration ahead of his detention and the Trump administration's revocation of his green card, and administrators did not provide him with protection earlier this year when he told them he feared being swept up in the White House's plans to crack down on free speech.
The Trump administration is pushing to deport Khalil, claiming the pro-Palestinian views he expressed at student protests are detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests. Khalil was one of thousands of U.S. college students who took part in protests calling for schools to divest from companies that benefit from Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians in 19 months and has included a blockade on humanitarian aid, pushing the civilian population toward famine.
Since stepping in as acting president in March, Shipman has met with faculty that object to Columbia's capitulation to the Trump administration; mentioned the names of Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, another student who was marked for deportation but subsequently freed; and started a website for students who fear deportation.
But students' response on Tuesday suggested they've taken more notice of Shipman's summoning of the NYPD earlier this month and the school's agreement to the Trump administration's demands aimed at rooting out what the White House claims is "antisemitism"—including imposing a ban on masks, appointing an administrator to oversee Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies, and hiring dozens of "special officers" authorized to swiftly remove students from campus.
Students erupted in jeers and laughs when Shipman praised the Class of 2025 for being "curious, determined, and open-minded," and again chanted, "Free Mahmoud!" at another point in the speech.
A larger commencement ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday. Columbia University Apartheid Divest called on members of the school community to attend a protest action coinciding with the graduation.
"No commencement as usual under genocide," read a social media post announcing the protest.
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In 'Call to Duty' for 'Civic Courage,' Free Speech Champions Challenge Trump Assault on Key Rights
"In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions."
May 19, 2025
In an open letter on Monday, seven leading free speech organizations in the United States warned that the capitulation of universities and other institutions to President Donald Trump's demands for suppressed speech affect not just those organizations, their employees, and their students—but the state of U.S. democracy itself.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University spearheaded the letter that was signed by the ACLU, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN America, and Reporters Without Borders USA.
"If First Amendment freedoms are compromised, our democracy will be compromised, too," wrote the groups. "Democracy and free speech are inextricably linked. If we are to govern ourselves, we must be able to inquire, speak, write, associate, and protest without fear of governmental retaliation."
It followed several recent victories for some international students who have been arrested for expressing opposition to the United States' support for Israel. Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk was marked for deportation and sent thousands of miles away from her home in Massachusetts to a detention facility in Louisiana for writing an op-ed calling on her school to divest from companies benefiting from Israel's assault on Gaza—and was released earlier this month, with a judge saying her detention was a clear assault on the First Amendment.
"If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense. Leaders of this country's most powerful, well-resourced, and prestigious institutions must play a larger part in this effort."
Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri was released from immigration detention in Texas last week; he was apparently targeted by the Trump administration for his support for Palestinian rights and because his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, was a former adviser to a Hamas leader. Yousef has publicly condemned Hamas' October 2023 attacks.
Columbia graduate Mohsen Mahdawi wore a keffiyeh over his robe at commencement on Monday in solidarity with Palestinians—and received a standing ovation—less than a month after he was freed from detention. He had also been marked for deportation for organizing pro-Palestinian protests.
But another Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, remains in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana more than two months after being accosted at his campus apartment along with his pregnant wife and hustled into an unmarked car by immigration agents for his role in last year's pro-Palestinian protests.
The open letter on Monday did not mention Columbia University by name, but condemned universities and organizations that have capitulated to the White House.
Columbia trustees allegedly collaborated with ICE to detain Khalil, and when threatened with the revocation of $400 million in federal grants and contract, agreed to take a number of steps the Trump administration claimed were aimed at "fighting antisemitism." The school agreed to impose a ban on masks, appointed an administrator to oversee Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies, and hire "special officers" with the authority to swiftly remove people from campus.
"The logic that leads even powerful institutions to compromise or submit in these circumstances is of course easy to understand," reads the open letter. "But when one institution 'bends the knee,' its peers face increased pressure to do the same. Each surrender makes the assertion of First Amendment rights more costly and more perilous. We fear that if major institutions continue to submit rather than stand on their rights, the freedoms of speech and the press will be seriously and perhaps irrecoverably weakened."
Along with its attacks on higher education, the Trump administration has targeted major law firms—terminating their federal contracts and limiting their employees from entering federal buildings—in retaliation for their representation of his political opponents.
Some law firms have filed legal challenges against the president—and won—but others, including Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, have negotiated with the administration, offering pro bono legal services and promising to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
"These actions call for a forceful, uncompromising response. Some institutions have countered in exactly this way, to their credit," wrote the free speech groups on Monday. "It has been disheartening, however, to see so many others capitulating to the administration's unconstitutional demands rather than asserting their rights."
The letter also condemned the Trump administration's decision to bar legal scholars from providing information to the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; its rule banningThe Associated Press from White House press briefings for its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico by Trump's chosen name, the "Gulf of America"; and the Federal Communications Commission's threat to revoke the licenses of TV and radio networks if the president disagrees with their news coverage.
"In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions," reads the letter. "If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense. Leaders of this country's most powerful, well-resourced, and prestigious institutions must play a larger part in this effort."
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, warned that "First Amendment freedoms will wither if institutional leaders don't assert and defend them."
"This letter is meant to be a call to duty," he said, "and to civic courage.”
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