"This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer," said Abdalla. "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."
"I will continue to fight every day for Mahmoud to come home to us," she continued. "I know when Mahmoud is freed, he will show our son how to be brave, thoughtful, and compassionate, just like his dad."
After learning that Abdalla had gone into labor in New York City on Sunday, Khalil's legal team requested that morning that he "be released on furlough immediately" from the Louisiana ICE facility in which he's been detained since last month, when plainclothes immigration authorities arrested him at the couple's Columbia University-owned apartment.
Khalil's attorneys said they would be "open to any combination of conditions that would allow furlough from ICE's perspective, including a GPS ankle monitor and/or scheduled check-ins."
Less than an hour later, according to emails obtained by NPR, ICE official Mellissa Harper denied the request, citing "consideration of the submitted information and a review of your client's case." NPR reported that Khalil "instead experienced part of the birth through a phone call."
"Mahmoud Khalil missed the birth of his first child because fascists cannot stand principled people demanding the end of the mass slaughter of Palestinians," Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97) wrote on social media.
Khalil and his legal team are currently engaged in a high-stakes, two-pronged court fight over the Trump administration's attempt to remove him from the country, an effort that his lawyers argue is a blatant attack on constitutionally protected speech and the right to dissent. Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident, helped lead Columbia University campus protests last year against Israel's assault on Gaza.
Earlier this month, Louisiana immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled that Khalil—who has not been charged with a crime—can be deported, a decision that his legal team is appealing.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said following a court hearing that the judge's decision "appeared to be pre-written" and warned that the Trump administration's attempt to remove Khalil from the country poses a dire threat to civil liberties.
"If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes," Marc van der Hout, one of Khalil's lawyers, said in a statement. "We will continue working tirelessly until Mahmoud is free and rightfully returned home to his family and community."
