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May 23, 2025

Judge Allows Detained Palestinian Student Mahmoud Khalil to Hold Infant Son for First Time
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Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate abducted by ICE,
testified in court Thursday that he faces possible "assassination,
kidnapping, [or] torture" if he were to be deported, after being
"mislabeled … a terrorist sympathizer" by the U.S. government. Khalil
has been locked up in an immigration prison in Jena, Louisiana, for over
two months, after he was taken from his New York home in March. Just
hours before his testimony on Thursday, Mahmoud Khalil was permitted to
hold his 1-month-old son Deen for the first time since he was born.
Hundreds of people rallied in Jena Thursday to demand justice for
Khalil. Amy Greer, one of his lawyers, spoke to reporters after the
court hearing.

Amy Greer: "As long as this genocide is unfolding and the ethnic
cleansing happening in the West Bank continues to unfold to the silence
of the Western part of the world, he will keep speaking. And this
administration can keep throwing people away, keep trying to silence our
communities, but we see what's happening. Mahmoud sees what's happening.
And he is willing to exercise his voice and protect all of our rights."

We'll have more on this story later in the broadcast with another member
of Mahmoud Khalil's legal team, Ramzi Kassem.


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