Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, detained in the U.S. and facing deportation, was not allowed to attend the birth of his first child, his wife Noor Abdalla said in a statement.
Abdalla gave birth alone on Monday, April 21, in New York, describing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s refusal to grant Khalil temporary release as a “purposeful decision” to make her family suffer.
“Mahmoud remains unjustly detained in an ICE detention center over 1,000 miles away from his firstborn child. My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom,” Abdalla said in a statement.
“I will continue to fight every day for Mahmoud to come home to us. I know when Mahmoud is freed, he will show our son how to be brave, thoughtful, and compassionate, just like his dad,” she added.
An Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, Mahmoud Khalil, was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.
He holds a computer science degree from the Lebanese American University and worked at the British Embassy in Lebanon from 2018 to 2022, where he managed the Syria Chevening Programme, an initiative offering scholarships for Syrian students to study in the UK.
In 2022, Khalil relocated to the United States on a student visa and later obtained a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in December 2024.
On March 8, Khalil was arrested at the Columbia University-owned apartment he shares with his wife, Noor Abdalla. His detention followed a determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Khalil’s actions were “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which foster a hostile environment for Jewish students in the U.S.”
Earlier this month, a Louisiana immigration judge ruled in favour of deporting Khalil. His arrest marked the first in former President Donald Trump’s renewed crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators involved in campus encampments opposing the Gaza genocide.
