NEWARK, N.J. —After more than three months in ICE detention, Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil returned to the New York area where his harrowing ordeal first began.

Immigration authorities had arrested Khalil, 30, in March at the university housing complex where he lived in New York City. He was quickly transported thousands of miles away to a detention center in Louisiana, where he spent the last few months.

Khalil remained defiant as he spoke to reporters and supporters on Saturday afternoon upon his arrival at Newark International Airport.

“Your messages have kept me going. Still the fight is far from over, the genocide is still happening in Gaza, Israel is still waging a full war against Palestine,” said Khalil, who was flanked by his wife Dr. Noor Abdalla and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The U.S. government is funding this genocide and Columbia University is investing in this genocide. This is why I was protesting, this is why I will continue protesting with every one of you, not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Gaza.”

When asked what his message would be to the Trump administration, Khalil said, “Just the fact that I’m here sends a message.”

“The fact that all of these attempts to suppress pro-Palestine voices have failed now,” he said. “This is the message. My existence is a message.”

Ocasio-Cortez said Khalil’s imprisonment for politically motivated.

“Everybody agrees that persecution based on political speech is wrong and is a violation of all of our First Amendment rights, not just Mahmoud’s,” she said.

His unprecedented detention has sparked national outrage.

Further fueling the controversy, Abdalla, an American, gave birth to the couple’s first son in April while he remained behind bars.

Upon his release in Louisiana on Friday, Khalil addressed reporters briefly, saying he was excited to return to New York City and see his family.

“Although justice prevailed,” he said upon his release, “it’s long, very long overdue. And this shouldn’t have taken three months.”

“Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this,” he added. “That doesn’t mean that there is a right person for this. There’s no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide, for protesting their university, Columbia University.”

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin on Friday denounced the judicial order freeing Khalil and the judge who issued it.

“This is yet another example of how out of control members of the judicial branch are undermining national security,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Their conduct not only denies the result of the 2024 election, it also does great harm to our constitutional system by undermining public confidence in the courts.”

The Trump administration claimed it had the authority to detain and deport the pro-Palestinian student activist, arguing that his presence in the U.S. threatened national security. Another charge against Khalil alleges that he omitted details about his work history and membership in organizations on his permanent residency application.

The government cited an obscure provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives Secretary of State Marco Rubio authority to “personally determine” whether a foreign national can remain in the U.S. on national security grounds.

An NBC News review of more than 100 pages of court filings found that prosecutors relied on unverified tabloid reports and anecdotal claims, raising doubts about the strength of their case for deporting Khalil.

Less than 10 minutes after Khalil, who has no criminal history, was released from the detention center in Jena, Louisiana, the Trump administration filed a notice of appeal. A lawyer representing Khalil vowed to fight the appeal.

Khalil helped lead student protests over the war in Gaza, where more than 55,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its war against Hamas. He also participated in negotiations with university officials at Columbia last year, when protests at the Ivy League school gripped national headlines for weeks and inspired similar demonstrations at universities around the world.

Some Jewish students at universities across the U.S. reported antisemitic incidents as the protest movement gained traction.

Khalil was the first of several foreign academics apprehended by immigration authorities in the first months of Trump’s second term.

Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, a doctoral candidate from Turkey, was arrested outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, by immigration authorities on March 25. Viral street footage of her arrest showed Department of Homeland Security officials dressed in plain clothes surrounding Öztürk, grabbing her by the wrists and escorting her into an unmarked vehicle.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old graduate student at Columbia who was born in the West Bank, was apprehended by immigration authorities during his naturalization interview in Vermont.

Federal judges also ordered the release of both Öztürk and Mahdawi in recent weeks. Other notable cases include a Georgetown University professor who was detained by ICE and later released after a judicial order, and a Brown University professor who was deported to Lebanon.

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained for more than three months, pushed his infant son’s stroller with one hand and pumped his fist in the air with the other as supporters welcomed him home Saturday.

Mahmoud Khalil greeted friends and spoke briefly to reporters Saturday at New Jersey’s Newark International Airport a day after leaving a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. A former Columbia University graduate student and symbol of President Trump ’s clampdown on campus protests, he vowed to continue protesting Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he said. “This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine.”

Khalil, a legal U.S. resident whose wife gave birth during his 104 days of detention, said he also will speak up for the immigrants he left behind in the detention center.

“Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone in this land, you’re not illegal. That doesn’t make you less of a human,” he said.

The 30-year-old international affairs student wasn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. However, the government has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the U.S. for expressing views the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence. The government filed notice Friday evening that it is appealing Khalil’s release.

Joining Khalil at the airport, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said his detention violated the First Amendment and was “an affront to every American.”

“He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” she said.

“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “They are violating the law, and they know that they are violating the law.”

After being detained by ICE for 104 days, after being unable to walk in his graduation, and after missing the birth of his child, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released on bail on Friday.

Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States, has become the most high-profile anti-war, pro-Palestine student to be targeted by President Donald Trump and his administration. His release from a federal immigration detention center in rural Louisiana on Friday marks a key turning point in Trump’s continued legal battle against Khalil and other student activists across the nation. While the administration has already appealed his release, Khalil is being reunited with his wife and his young son in New York.

“Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this,” Khalil said moments after being released, adding, “that doesn’t mean that there’s a right person for this. There’s no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide, for protesting their university, Columbia University, that is investing in the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

Pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil reacts as he arrives at Newark airport next to his wife Noor Abdalla (R) and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (L), Democrat of New York, in Newark, New Jersey, on June 21, 2025. KENA BETANCUR/Getty Images

“No one is illegal, no human is illegal,” Khalil continued. “Justice will prevail. No matter what this administration may try to portray “

Khalil shared about his experience inside La Salle Detention Facility, an ICE processing location where many immigrants are being held as a part of Trump’s coordinated anti-migrant campaign.

“The moment you enter this facility, your rights leave you behind,” he said. “So once you enter there you see a different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice. But once you cross, literally, that door, you see the opposite side of what is actually happening in this country—under just the eyes of everyone.”

Khalil’s winding legal battle began on March 8 when plainclothes Homeland Security agents arrested him at his university apartment and threatened to arrest his then-eight-months-pregnant wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, who is a citizen. The Trump administration has painted Khalil as a threat to national security, with the president calling him a “radical foreign pro-Hamas Student”; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, by invoking a rarely cited law, also claimed that Khalil’s presence in the country threatened the administration’s foreign policy goal of preventing antisemitism—and justified his deportation.

Khalil’s lawyers, family, and several colleagues connected to Columbia have held that this portrayal of him is demonstrably false.

Standing beside a recently released Mahmoud Khalil, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned Donald Trump’s administration for the “illegal” persecution of the Columbia University student, who was imprisoned for more than three months in an immigration detention center for his pro-Palestinian activism.

The New York congresswoman joined Khalil and his family at Newark Liberty International Airport Saturday for a press conference moments after his return.

“Because Mahmoud Khalil is an advocate for Palestinian human rights, he has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” she said.

Khalil was stripped of his green card and arrested in front of his then-pregnant wife in their New York City apartment building on March 8. He was then sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he was kept for months and forced to miss the birth of his child.

On Friday, a federal judge granted his release from ICE detention on bail while legal challenges against his arrest and threat of removal from the country continue in both federal and immigration courts.

“It is wrong, it is illegal, it is a violation of his First Amendment rights, it is an affront to every American and … we will continue to resist the politicization and the continued political persecution that ICE is engaged in,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“Everyone agrees that the persecution based on political speech is wrong and is a violation of all of our First Amendment rights, not just Mahmoud’s,” she added.

Khalil, who is Palestinian, grew up in a refugee camp in Syria. He entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 to pursue a master’s degree in public administration and emerged as a face of Columbia demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Trump administration officials have accused Khalil of “antisemitic activities,” allegations Khalil and his legal team have flatly denied.

“The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he told reporters at Newark. “This is what I was protesting, this is what I will continue to protest with every one of you, not only if they threaten me with detention, even if they kill me, I will still speak up for Palestine.”

AOC joined Khalil and his wife Noor Abdalla on June 21 as the congresswoman criticized what she described as Trump administration’s politically motivated attempts to silence the Columbia student’s pro-Palestinian activism (REUTERS)

Speaking out for Palestinian rights is “speech that should actually be celebrated rather than punished, as if this administration wants to do,” Khalil said.

Officials concede that Khalil did not commit any crime, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sought to justify Khalil’s arrest by invoking a rarely used law claiming that Khalil’s presence in the United States undermines foreign policy interests to prevent antisemitism.

A judge’s order for his release is the latest in a string of high-profile legal losses for the Trump administration following the arrests of international scholars for their pro-Palestinian activism.

Their arrests sparked widespread outrage against the administration’s apparent attempts to crush campus dissent, while Rubio has said he “proudly” revoked hundreds of student visas over campus activism.

The Trump administration “knows they are waging a losing legal battle” against pro-Palestine students, and are “violating the law” to build a campaign against them, Ocasio-Cortez said.

Lawyers for the Trump administration appealed the order for his release on Friday night.

A spokesperson for Homeland Security called the order “yet another example of how out-of-control members of the judicial branch are undermining national security.”

Freed activist says Trump administration failed to suppress pro-Palestinian voices

Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil calls his release a message to Trump

The US government wants to deport him, arguing his activism is detrimental to foreign policy interests.

Mr Khalil was a prominent voice in the New York university’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, and his 8 March arrest sparked demonstrations in New York and Washington DC.

“My existence is a message” to the Trump administration, he told the BBC after returning to New Jersey from a detention centre in Louisiana. “All these attempts to suppress Pro-Palestinian voices have failed now.”

Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil has said the Trump administration failed to suppress pro-Palestinian voices, following his release from more than three months in immigration detention.

Speaking at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday, Mr Khalil vowed to continue to advocate for Palestinian rights, and for the rights of the immigrants “who are left behind in that facility” where he was jailed in Louisiana.

He accused the White House of attempting to “dehumanise anyone who does not agree with the administration”.

He held flowers given to him by supporters, and shouted “free Palestine” as he ended his remarks. He was pushing a pram carrying his baby son, who was born while he was in prison, as he departed the news conference with his wife.

Mr Khalil was joined by New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said his release showed that the Trump administration was losing the legal battle to deport migrants in the US who advocate for Palestinians.

“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” she said.

“They are violating the law, and they know they are violating the law. And they are trying to use these one-off examples to intimidate everyone else.”

Mr Khalil’s remarks come a day after a judge ordered him released from jail after determining he was not a flight risk or threat to his community while his immigration proceedings continued.

The Trump administration has vowed to appeal against his release, as it continues its efforts to remove him from the US.