(NEW YORK) — Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil called himself a “political prisoner” in a new letter dictated from the Louisiana detention center where he remains held following his arrest on Columbia University’s campus.
“I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law,” Khalil stated in the letter, which was dictated over the phone to his family and obtained by ABC News from his legal team on Tuesday.
Khalil, a leader of the encampment protests at Columbia last spring, was detained on March 8. He was taken from his student apartment building to 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, and then to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to his legal team.
Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration have said Khalil was detained for his purported support of Hamas — a claim his legal team has rejected.
Khalil’s lawyers said that during his detainment, plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents said his student visa had been revoked — even though Khalil is in the U.S. on a green card. He has not been charged with a crime.
A federal judge has blocked Khalil’s removal from the U.S. while weighing a petition challenging his arrest.
He is set to appear before an immigration judge on March 27.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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