On a Louisiana Court Ruling That the U.S. Can Deport Mahmoud Khalil
Mahmoud should be going home to his pregnant wife today, but instead he remains a captive of the legal system of the American empire that has revealed its true face–illegitimate, vindictive, and weaponized against those who dare to resist. His detention is not just a personal tragedy, but a calculated attempt to crush the spirit of an entire impregnable movement for Palestinian liberation. The decision that came out of Louisiana courts today is a chilling preview of what lies ahead in this episode of the Zionist authoritarian campaign. It flagrantly defies the very laws meant to curb such abuses of power, and signals that under Trump’s authoritarian regime, the freedom to dissent is not just under threat — it is being systematically dismantled.
Mahmoud’s freedom should not be up for debate, yet here we are. This is more than a legal injustice; it is a reflection of the same colonial logic that underpins the zionist occupation. Mahmoud has done nothing but exercise his first amendment rights, yet, his rights have been invalidated by a fascist ruling class determined to repress and extinguish Palestinian resistance and all anti-imperialist sentiment.
Columbia University, too, remains guilty, and has proven itself to be a willing collaborator with the zionist regime and Trump’s draconian project. The students of the university understand that the same entrenched network enabling israel’s genocide—backed by the US government—extends deeply into their own institution. Its active complicity in and endorsement of the repressive agenda of the Trump administration has radicalized its students, who maintain their demands that Columbia divest from israel's genocide in Gaza, and apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
These dangerous precedents are being weaponized as Trump and his administration move in hurried attempts to crush the student movement. They will use every recourse available, including rewriting and modernizing wartime laws and archaic statues, wielded to give fascist ambitions the appearance of legality, sowing fear and chaos among people of moral conscience. In the wake of Mahmoud’s capture, targeting has only escalated. Muslim and Arab students and faculty, such as Rumeysa Ozturk and Dr. Rasha Alawieh, have been detained and deported by ICE. The breadth of this political dragnet expands daily: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of the United States, was deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador simply for being an immigrant. The pattern is unmistakable. While we bear witness to these terrifying developments, we do not need to wait for what comes next to respond. Mahmoud’s capture is already an intolerable injustice. That alone demands action.
While we fear for the safety of Mahmoud, his wife, and their unborn child, our movements have also seen this kind of intimidation before. History has taught us that these behemoths of imperial power operate on limited time. They will, as all oppressive regimes do, fall.
