Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. permanent resident whom the Trump administration is seeking to deport, missed the birth of his first child Monday after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied his request for temporary release, his wife said.
According to emails obtained by The Associated Press, Khalil’s attorneys submitted a request for a two-week furlough Sunday morning. Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, had just gone into labor, eight days earlier than expected, they said. But their request was swiftly rejected by ICE’s New Orleans field office, the AP reported.
On Monday afternoon, Abdalla released a statement announcing that she had delivered their son. She said her husband’s absence at their child’s birth was “a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer.”
“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,” she said, adding that she will “continue to fight every day for Mahmoud to come home to us.”
ICE did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, has been held at a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, since his arrest in New York City in March. In seeking his deportation, the Trump administration has claimed that Khalil’s pro-Palestinian activism amounted to antisemitism and that his presence in the U.S. would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” citing an obscure provision in immigration law. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited Khalil’s “beliefs, statements, or associations” as the basis for his deportation, an argument Khalil’s attorneys have strongly rejected. Khalil’s case is one of the most high-profile tests of the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech in the U.S. It is also part of the government’s efforts to cast a wider — and deeply controversial — net to remove noncitizens from the country. On April 11, an immigration judge ruled that the government has grounds to remove Khalil from the U.S. His attorneys have said they will appeal the decision. Khalil is also currently fighting his deportation in a federal court in New Jersey, where his case was transferred from Louisiana last month.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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