Mahmoud Khalil Comes Home
Mahmoud Khalil and Noor Abdalla. (Hell Gate)

Mahmoud Khalil Comes Home

Plus more news for your pre-primary Monday.

At Hell Gate, we're always pushing the boundaries of our news coverage, from the printed word, to live forums, to podcasts...and now, to live streaming coverage (on YouTube).

That's right, tomorrow from 8:30 p.m.—10:30 p.m. Hell Gate is proud to be broadcasting our first-ever live studio coverage of the night's mayoral primary results, featuring reporters in the field, interviews with leading commentators, snazzy graphics, and...the normal amount of chaotic fun that comes with doing it all...live! You can stream it all here.

And want to catch up with everything that's going on in the mayor's race before tomorrow's primary? Check out the latest episode of the Hell Gate Podcast. You can listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts. And stay on the lookout for a special primary reaction episode, coming later this week.

When Mahmoud Khalil was kidnapped from Columbia University student housing by federal immigration agents on March 8, New Yorkers were still bundling up against the cold. When Khalil was finally released from ICE custody on Friday, more than 100 days later, the city was sweltering, and he'd missed the birth of his first child, a son who was born in April. "It's often hard to find patience in ICE detention," Khalil told a crowd of hundreds of his supporters at St. John the Divine, a cathedral just two blocks south of Columbia University, at a rally on Sunday. "The center is crowded with hundreds of people who are told that their existence is illegal and not one of us knows when we can go free. At those moments, it was remembering a specific chant that gave me strength: 'I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win.'"

Khalil, a Palestinian immigrant who grew up in a Syrian refugee camp and is a legal permanent resident, was the first pro-Palestinian campus activist to be taken into ICE custody by the Trump administration and threatened with deportation. Now, he's become the last to be released, flying on Friday from a Louisiana ICE detention center and landing in New Jersey on Saturday. In an interview with the New York Times on Sunday, Khalil said that he "literally laughed" at Secretary of State Marco Rubio's assertion that Khalil's student activism—which included being a leading voice in the April 2024 pro-Palestine encampment on Columbia's campus—constituted a national security threat worthy of detention and deportation. (Khalil was accused of being a "Hamas supporter" by Rubio.) "It was very ironic," he said. "What did I do that I'm a foreign policy threat to the United States? Did I, like, damage the U.S.-Israeli relationship? Because it doesn't appear so." Khalil also lamented missing the birth of his son after ICE denied his requests to be by his wife Noor Abdalla's side in the delivery room, saying that there is "nothing in this world that would compensate me for the time I lost with my family and witnessing the birth of my child."

But Khalil likely has a long road ahead of him—the Trump administration is still attempting to deport him; according to one of his attorneys at Sunday’s rally, the federal government appealed his release the same day he was freed. "What happened on March 8 marked the beginning of a new chapter in this nation's long history of injustice," attorney Alina Das said. "This fight is a fight for Mahmoud, but it is also a fight for all of us. When the U.S. government tries to silence Mahmoud, they are not only violating his First Amendment rights, they are depriving us all of our First Amendment rights."

Give us your email to read the full story

Sign up now for our free newsletters.

Sign up

Scott's Picks:

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to Hell Gate.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.