Washington After more than 3 months he spent at the migrant detention center in the state of Louisiana, the American authorities released on Friday the Palestinian activist. Mahmoud Khalil On a temporary guarantee, according to a federal judicial decision, allowing him to return to New York to join his wife and newborn child, while the judicial procedures related to his case continue.
In his first statement after his release, Khalil expressed his dissatisfaction with the conditions of his lengthy detention, saying, “Justice has won, but after a long and unjustified delay.”
At the Newark Airport in New Jersey, where activists and journalists received him, Khalil pledged to continue his struggle for the Palestinian issue, stressing, “They will not scare me with arrest, even if they kill me, I will remain defending Palestine“.
Detention without charges
The beginning of the Khalil case dates back to March 8, when members of the Ministry of Internal Security raided his residence in Manhattan and arrested him without an arrest warrant or criminal charges. The American authorities later justified the arrest based on a controversial article of the 1952 immigration and immigration law, allowing the Foreign Minister to deport “any foreigner who is likely to harm his existence with the foreign policy of the United States.”
It was the administration of the American President Donald Trump This article was used to justify the detention of Khalil, claiming that his pro -Palestine activity “complicates relations with a strategic ally” in reference to Israel.
These justifications were met with harsh criticism from human rights organizations and legal experts who considered that the detention of Khalil represented a serious threat to freedom of expression, and the legal defense team was quick to challenge the legitimacy of his arrest, as it was a flagrant violation of the first amendment in The American Constitution.
Lawyer Omar Mohammadi – known for his issues against the New York Police – told Al -Jazeera Net: “The case is not related to national security, but rather a violation of the constitution,” adding that the government “tests the limits of the first amendment, but it will fail, as the judiciary is the last guard of the constitution.”
For her part, Nour Safar, the chief lawyer for the Immigration Project of the American Union of Civil Liberties, considered that the detention of Khalil is “an explicit political punishment”, and said in a statement obtained by Al -Jazeera Net, that “resorting to immigration laws as a tool to suppress the solidarity with Palestine threatens everyone, and not the Palestinians alone.”
Changing
In late May, a federal judge in New Jersey spent that the argument “damage to foreign policy” may be unconstitutional, and gave the government to provide a stronger legal basis or the release of Khalil.
But instead of retreating, the Ministry of Internal Security resorted to a new accusation, which is to “falsify information in the permanent residence card request”, claiming that Khalil did not disclose all his relations with Palestinian organizations. Judge Michael Varbarars described the move as “exceptional and rarely used”, especially in light of the lack of a danger from his flight or threat to society, and he ordered on June 20 this this year to release him on bail while completing legal procedures.
Lawyer Muhammadi told Al -Jazeera Net that “the authorities are targeting the weak residents of the holders.”Green Card((The Green Card) because they consider them “easy goals,” adding that “what the government is doing is a violation of the constitution”, and that it is trying to “intimidate others from practicing peaceful political activity, although it is protected under the American constitution.”
Muhammadi stressed that the legal battle will continue, noting that “all organizations of defense of civil rights and the people believe in the justice of the Mahmoud case will continue the legal struggle, because no one is above the constitution, neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the President.”
An endless battle
Despite the temporary release of Khalil, the Ministry of Internal Security announced its intention to appeal the judicial decision, which means that the chapters of the case were not over, and that Khalil may face new sessions before the immigration judge if the government insists on proceeding to provide incomplete information in the residence request.
The Khalil case comes in the context of a broader campaign launched by the Trump administration against the activists in solidarity with Palestine inside the United States, where Trump escalated his attacks against the student movement in support of the Palestinian cause, and considered their demonstrations “anti -Semitism and America”, vowing to deport foreign students participating in it.
The arrest of Khalil was the first practical test of these threats, and Trump at the time was proud of the operation, describing it as “the first arrest of a next series.”
While the US government failed to keep Khalil detained, it is likely that it seeks to stabilize the charge of “falsifying the residence request” as a legal justification for withdrawing and deporting his green card, at a time when the organizations of the defense of freedoms believe that this attempt is part of a political campaign targeting the supporting voices of Palestine in the American interior.