Mahmoud Khalil, center, and his wife Noor Abdalla, on the left, in the Violet scarf, at Columbia University last year.
Mary Altaffer / AP
hide
tilting legend
Mary Altaffer / AP
Immigration authorities have denied an urgent request from Mahmoud Khalil to be temporarily released from detention, under surveillance, so that he can attend the birth of his first child. His wife, Noor Abdalla, delivered their son on Monday to New York on Monday.
Khalil, who is held in a distant detention center in Louisiana, has rather experienced part of the birth by a telephone call.
Khalil’s legal team wrote to the head of immigration and customs application supervising his detention on Sunday and informed him that his wife had entered New York that morning, e-mails obtained by NPR Show. They asked him to give Khalil a two -week parole so that he could be present for birth.
“Mr. Khalil would be open to any combination of conditions that would allow the leave from Ice’s point of view, including a GPS ankle instructor and / or planned checks,” the lawyers wrote.
Half an hour later, Mellissa Harper, director of the New Orleans of Ice’s field office, denied the request.
Khalil’s temporary release request attended the birth of her child. The ice denied him.
Screenshot / obtained by NPR
hide
tilting legend
Screenshot / obtained by NPR
Khalil, a student graduated from Columbia University, was the first student demonstrator that the Trump administration stopped in his repression against pro-Palestinian activists. His attempted expulsion has become a major flash point in an increasing struggle on the freedom of expression of immigrants and regular procedural rights in the second term Trump.
Since the Trump administration stopped and started the deportation procedure against Khalil last month, his lawyers worked urgently to release him in time for the birth of his son. They asked the federal judge hearing his challenge for his detention for constitutional reasons to release him on bail or at least to make him return to the New York region. The judge has not yet ruled on one or the other request.
Marc Van der Hout, one of Khalil’s lawyers, said in an NPR interview that for Khalil, the birth of his son on Monday was bit bittersness.
“He is happy to be a father, but he is extremely disappointed that he cannot be there to support his wife, being there to hold his first child,” said Van der Hout. “And he had certainly hoped and expected the government to show a certain humanity. But they did not do it.”
Abdalla and the baby are healthy.
In a statement, Abdalla wrote that the refusal of her husband’s request “was a targeted ice decision to make me, Mahmoud and our son”.
She added: “My son and I should not navigate his first days on Earth without Mahmoud. Ice and the Trump administration stole these precious moments from our family in order to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”
Ice did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Earlier this month, an immigration judge of Louisiana judged that Khalil, a legal permanent resident, can be expelled on the basis of a two-page memo that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote allegedly, without proof, that his pro-Palestinian activism at the University of Columbia was anti-Semitic. Rubio has cited a rarely used law which gives it broad authority to decide that the presence of a non-citizen in the United States threatens foreign policy objectives-in this case, the fight against anti-Semitism in the world.
But the federal judge hearing the trial of Khalil contesting his detention as unconstitutional reprisals for his freedom of expression ordered the government not to withdraw it from the country while this case is advancing.
