Mahmoud Khalil’s 104 days in ICE Detention

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. On the night of March 8th, 2025, my guest, Mahmoud Khalil, was walking into the lobby of his apartment building in New York with his wife, who was eight months pregnant. A man in plain clothes slipped in behind them and within minutes put Khalil in handcuffs. Within two days, he was in an immigration jail in rural Louisiana, more than a thousand miles from home. Khalil had a green card, he had no criminal record, and had never been charged with a crime. But he had become one of the most visible faces of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, where he was a graduate student and the negotiator between the protesters and the administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that he should be deported, invoking a provision that had never been used against a permanent resident in this way. Khalil spent 104 days in detention. His son was born while he was inside. A federal judge, ordered him released in June of last year, but the government is still trying to remove him. And Khalil is preparing to ask the Supreme Court to hear his case. This month, he sued Columbia, accusing the university of failing to protect him and other Palestinian students from harassment and of retaliating against them when they reported it. Khalil was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and fled the country at 18. His new memoir, drawn in part from the diary he kept in detention, is called No Land to Stand On. And Mahmoud Khalil, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you so much, Tanya. Thank you for having me. I want to start with the night that you were arrested. Officers took you to 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan in the middle of the night. They photographed you, they took your fingerprints, and then they took a DNA swab. And would you read what happened from there in the book? I thought of all the other times I had sat at the same setup. Consulates, visa interviews, immigration offices, proving again and again that I had the right to exist in spaces that barely tolerated me. Each time, the same performance. Convince us that you are not a threat, that you have enough money and a compelling reason to travel or reside. Prove you won't get stuck in our country and will return home. But where was home? Syria, where I was born but couldn't return to. Germany, where my family lived but I had no right to stay. Algeria, where I had a passport but whose soil I barely knew. America, which had given me a green card and then snatched me off the street. Or Palestine, the only answer that ever felt true. The only place that ever made sense. Even though I had never set foot there. Mahmoud, thank you so much for reading that. Before that night, what did your green card mean to you? You know, I was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, holding temporary cards or ID cards. It was written on a temporary ID card for Palestinian refugees. Then when I fled to Lebanon, the same happened when I had to leave the country. I was told that I had to renew my residency every year because it was a temporary residency. So to be in the United States and for the first time in my life having, you know, something written on it permanent, it meant to me stability. It meant to me that I finally would have a chance to actually plan for more than next year or next month. And I really felt safety with that, especially in a place where my wife, Noor, and I have always envisioned sort of living and building a life and building a family. So it's really like meant more than anything, safety and stability. Take me back to a few weeks before that arrest. You and your wife, Noor, were living in New York. She was eight months pregnant. You had just finished your degree. What did an ordinary night look like for the two of you? I mean, at that time, I was. I was waiting to start my new job, like on the first of April, basically. So I was basically doing, you know, all the house stuff because Noor would be working and would come home tired. She was pregnant. And we were just like looking for strollers and building our baby registry. And Noor is from Michigan. And we were debating whether she would give birth in Michigan or in New York. And we ended up deciding that it should be New York because it would be closer. So it was literally just like any other couple expecting a baby. You were also, though, reading those Know Your Rights guides before you were arrested because people had been calling at that moment for your deportation because of the demonstrations at Columbia. How seriously before that moment did you actually believe they might come for you? Yeah. For not one moment, I felt like this is serious because the most basic thing, I did not commit any crime. I did not do anything wrong, even within the civil disobedience that some students participated in at Columbia. I did not even participate in that. So to me, it was, you know, let me read Know Your Rights just in case. But I was in Mexico. We were doing Noor and I having one last trip, like a baby moon, they call it, I learned. So I was in Mexico. We came back. I did not really think a lot about these attacks online. And even, you know, when some students called me to come and negotiate when they were having a sit-in at Barnard University, I showed up because I was like, you know, the students trust me, the administration know me, they would talk to me. And I would be able to at least find the solution so that everyone is safe, everyone is happy. But I think that's where I miscalculated. At no point, I felt that there is actually like a big risk. Even I was discussing it with my friends a day or two before my arrest. We were having like a big dinner or iftar at our house the night before, like over 20 of our friends came over. And every one of them was really concerned, like about seeing this smear campaign and doxing happening online. And they was downplaying it, that, you know, no, it's not gonna, nothing gonna happen. Like I'm, at the end of the day, I'm a permanent resident and they committed no crime. You mentioned being a negotiator at Barnard and at Columbia. So your role in the protests was a little different from, say, someone leading chants with the bullhorn. You were actually sitting across the table from administrators at the university. Take me into one of those meetings. What were you negotiating and who were you speaking for? During the encampment, the students, mostly they nominated me to be in this position for different reasons. One of them, my experience as, you know, working in diplomacy, I spent five years working for the British Embassy in Beirut, for the foreign office, doing diplomacy. Before that, like I came with a lot of experience in diplomacy. And I was, you know, I was, you know, with very long experience working in such spaces, working in bureaucracy. I was like, of course, older than most. So they trusted my judgment, given that experience. And for the administration as well, it was that I'm someone who, you know, talks their language in terms of what should happen, how things should happen. But a lot of these conversations, to be honest, were, I would say, superficial from the point that Colombia dealt with us as a PR threat or a brand issue rather than. A public relations threat. Exactly. Public relations threat. Or an issue to deal with rather than actually like students were grieving for what's happening in Palestine. Students were actually asking for change. I remember a lot of the international students hid their faces during the protests because they were, they were worried about their visas, but you did not. Why was it important to you to be seen? I think it was less than about being seen, more about I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was, you know, protesting. I was mediating between parties. Why would I hide my face? Mahmoud, I want to take us through, you arriving, at this detention center. So the next morning, after immigration agents booked and processed you in Manhattan, they put you on a plane and no one would tell you where that plane was going. And at one point, you write about this in the book that you thought, maybe they're taking me to Algeria. And you write that your first feeling was, at least I'd be free. What was the second feeling? The second feeling was really, and I would put it like as the first feeling is just the fear about Nour's safety, because the last thing I heard before for being shoved into the unmarked car of ice was them threatening Noor of arrest if she does not leave me. And all these two days when I was basically left without any sort of communication with the outside world, I was like, what happened to Noor? Is she okay? Did they actually arrest her? Is the baby okay? And these were the most, I would say, difficult two days of my life where you were expecting only to follow orders. No one would tell you anything. I would ask to call Noor, to call my lawyer. They wouldn't. They would say like later, later, later. And being taken from one place to another, being, you know, after I was served with the Rubio determination that I am somehow a foreign policy threat, that was shocking to me because I was like, does the government have anything against me that I don't know of? Are they making up something? You know, like every scenario in a place you are alone, you're only with officers. Literally every scenario ran in my head. And that was terrifying these two days. Remind us again what that determination was from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So the charge is that the foreign policy, the policy of the United States found my presence in the country to have adverse consequences to the foreign policy of the United States and threat to national security. And in it, we discovered later because that was only one sentence on my charge. But later, a month later, when the government had to show the evidence, they only had the actual determination, which was like, like a short document saying that my activities in the United States, otherwise lawful, have created a hostile environment for Jewish students. And it goes against the United States efforts to combat anti-Semitism. And that was very cynical to me. And sort of, I laughed when I saw this. I'm like, if I'm a threat to the foreign policy of the United States, like what kind of foreign policy does the United States have? Well, the president actually play a clip of President Trump in the days after Marco Rubio's determination. And he is at a press conference. A reporter asked him about you. And here's what he said. Let's listen. And President Trump, there's this protest leader from Columbia University that the administration is moving to deport. And he said that his arrest is going to be the first of many. How many? I think we ought to get them all out of the country. They're troublemakers. They're agitators. They don't love our country. We ought to get them the hell out. I think that guy, we ought to get him. I heard his statements, too. They were plenty bad. And I think we ought to get him the hell out of the country. I watched him. I watched tapes. Specifically, I watched tapes. And you can have him. OK? You can have him. That is President Donald Trump talking about my guest today, Mahmoud Khalil. Mahmoud, you heard him. He said, you don't love our country. You can have him. Presumably talking about deporting you. And you said this just a little bit earlier. But for a moment, you actually thought, you tried to rack your brain. Like, what did I do? Did I do something fatal that I wasn't aware of? Tell me a little bit more about that moment when you realized that your name was being spoken by the President of the United States. That was one of the other shocking moments. But I think, like, at that moment, I literally thought that this is the end of my life in terms of my career. Like, what's going to happen next? What do they do with someone who's a foreign policy threat? Do they just deport them? Or, like, actually, they would send them somewhere else? You know, my lawyers at that point were literally checking flights to Guantanamo, fearing that I would be taken there or to see God in El Salvador. So, you know, I mean, during his campaign, I mean, President Trump vowed to set the Palestine movement for freedom in the U.S. back 20 years. And he was hoping by targeting me that he would be able to achieve that. So, I wasn't, like, really surprised by, you know, the language, but more of, like, the overreach in the law. Like, I'm a firm believer of the rule of law. I came to this country because I also, you know, like, of course, love the principles of this country. I, you know, when I came here, like. Only three years ago, it's a place where I found that I may have a great life here. Like, that I would have potential in my career. But also, it's a place where I want to raise my children here. And that's what kept me fighting, just that this administration is trying to portray me as someone who is violent, someone who hates this country, someone who's working to undermine the principles of this country. It is the total opposite, actually. Because I fled, you know, I fled Assad Syria because of the authoritarian regime there, because of the forced disappearance, because of the arbitrary detention there, because of the lack of respect to the rule of law. That's why I left that country. And the United States was actually, you know, supporting these, you know, like. The Syrian people and their aspiration for freedom and justice and dignity. You've also been called pro-Hamas, which Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Israel. But I was just wondering, did anyone from the government ever sit across from you and ask you what you believe? Never. And, you know, during the immigration process, when they had to show some evidence, they did not bring anything except for some articles from. Like the New York Post and these very, you know, like right-wing groups. But there was nothing about my thoughts. I mean, in reality, I mentioned in the book, I'm someone who worked in the past for the British government. I interned at the U.N., but also I interned at the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations. That's like rival of Hamas. You know, that doesn't, like, just like the story does not add up at all. But to them, just. The fact that they can portray me as pro-Hamas, that would be enough for people to buy into the story, that this is someone who's violent, this is someone who's really against the American interests. What do you think of Hamas? I think Hamas is one of the political factions in the Palestinian society that gained popularity due to the failures of the peace process that was led by the PLO, and when people felt sort of, you know, desperate for any change, they turned into Hamas, and Hamas was providing or at least, you know, like showing that there is a path in resisting Israel. And that's how the people turned to be, you know, with or like to support Hamas. I'm someone who's against all Palestinian political parties right now because I don't think any of these political parties, really rise to the aspirations of the Palestinian people. And that's why, you know, it was to me sort of offensive to be called like a pro-Hamas or even like, you know, pro-PA, the Palestinian Authority or any of the Palestinian factions, because in fact, I'm not like, and that's part of also my fight to unite the Palestinian people. People want you to condemn Hamas. You've said what you said to me, many times, many places, but there seems to be something like a pushing, a pulling, a drawing out that they want of you to say something stronger. That's the problem because I'm not sure they are interested in my views about Hamas or whether I condemn them or not. To them, this question has become a litmus test or they're trying to make it as a litmus test. Like if you condemn Hamas, then you are worth of listening to. You are, you know, now, like you are a Palestinian who we can talk to, but if you don't, then you're not. Because that's part of the dehumanization of Palestinians. They want Palestinians to be a certain image. And if it's not that, then they are not worthy of listening to. That's why when I refuse, it's not about refusing to condemn Hamas. It's about refusing to answer the question from the start because I refuse the premise of that question. Our guest today is Mahmoud Khalil. We'll hear more of our conversation after a short break. And if you want to watch, some of our interviews, head on over to our YouTube channel. We'll be right back. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Mahmoud Khalil. His new memoir, No Land to Stand On, Notes from Detention, tells the story of his life as a Palestinian refugee, born in a camp in Syria, who fled the Assad regime at 18 and came to the United States to study at Columbia University. It's also the story of his life as a Palestinian refugee, and the story of the 104 days he spent in immigration detention after federal agents arrested him in New York. York in March of 2025 and the first of the Trump administration's attempts to deport pro-Palestinian protesters. He was released last June. Mahmoud, I want to go back to your time in detention. You're in Louisiana. You know, you write about this in the book that you didn't even know Louisiana on a map. And I want you to talk a little bit about the actual detention center itself. I mean, you describe it as the room there would never get dark. The lights always stayed on. The air was freezing cold. Meals came at strange hours. There was a TV that was running constantly. That all sounds really awful, but you call it torture. Absolutely. What is happening behind ICE detention gates is horrendous. And I believe that it is a on the U.S. consciousness. And I fear that in a couple of decades, we will look back at what's happening now and regret that. That's why I'm fighting right now, because I don't want to look back in a couple of decades. I want to act now. You know, it was often very hard to find patients in these detention centers. And it was crowded with hundreds of people who were told that their lives were illegal and, you know, no one of them could go free or could be set free. As I mentioned, I shared an area with over 70 other men. The lights were always on, no privacy whatsoever. But there was something else, which is the despair in these men's eyes that they were called names, they were called criminals, while in fact, they were trying to do everything right. Most of them, at least the ones that were around me, were picked up from their ICE check-ins, from their court hearings, or from their work sites. Once you enter these detention centers, you see a very different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice. But once you cross into these prisons, literally that door, you see the opposite side of what's actually happening. In this country. The people that you were with, I mean, everyone at this moment when you were in detention, they all knew your name because you were big news. There was a lot of reporting about you. And these men were just everyday people. I think one detail that stuck out to me that you wrote about was about one man who was saying over and over that he paid his taxes, as if that was something that once they knew that they would understand his place in the country. You mentioned the man who was sent to Mexico, but is there another person that you still can't forget? No, there's like a father of, I mean, just like every story was horrendous and heartbreaking. And, you know, when I entered detention, I thought my case was, you know, the most horrific. But when I entered, like in a day, I knew I was like, you know, I'm lucky, actually. At least, you know, I'm like, you know, I have, I have lawyers supporting me. But the vast majority of them, they would be lucky to have even one lawyer defending them. You mentioned they had a fading list of pro bono phone numbers on the wall. Yeah, exactly. So many stories. But one story is about a father who was picked up from his court hearing. He's a father of four. All of them were less than 10 years old. And his wife was going through chemotherapy because she was battling cancer. And that man, we spent like at least a month together. But in that month, every day, he would cry. Every single day, I would see him on the phone crying with his family, because when they picked him up, he was supposed after that to go take his wife to her chemotherapy to the hospital. And he felt so helpless. He felt so helpless to support her, but also to support his young daughters and the son. And that broke my heart, like how this could be even possible. Mahmoud, I want to talk with you about something that was really heartbreaking for you. Six weeks into your detention, your wife, Noor, goes into labor. And she was a week early. You asked for a furlough to be there. The government denied it. So that night, as she's in labor, you were on a payphone in the dorm, your face in the crook of your arm, so the men behind you can't actually see. And what could you hear? Really, you know, just like every time I try to remember that moment, it's just, I'm speechless. You know, I should have been free at home with my newborn son. But instead, I was forced to listen to my wife, Noor, delivering over the phone. It was like after midnight, like around two or three in the morning. And it's just like for nothing. So I can never forgive those who stripped that moment from me, a moment. That I believe every couple looks forward to. They want to be together. Noor and I like went above and beyond to be together for that moment. I refused, you know, job offers abroad. We refused that she would give birth in Michigan, just that we can be together during that moment. Yeah. I noticed you wrote the chapter, but you couldn't read it out loud for your audio book. You actually had a friend take over this session. What happens when you get to that page? You know, I did not even, you know, edit, edited that part. I only wrote it and sent it immediately to the editor and never read it again. Because it's so difficult to relive such moment. And, you know, when I got there, the plan was for me to never read it again. I just couldn't, like, just like, whenever I get there, I'm like, I don't want to relive that, that, that moment. And, yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, even, you know, even now, like, it's just so difficult to speak about it. It's hard to talk about. One of the things that I can imagine was hard for you to write about is that it sounds like you, you kind of felt a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of guilt for, for trusting the process, because your wife, Noor, when you were in detention, kept telling you to ask the lawyers about a furlough for the birth, and you kept pushing it forward. What were you waiting for? At that time, I think I was hoping that I would be out before thinking about it. I did not, I did not want to think that I would miss the birth of Saud as much as possible. And with that, even, like, to have that conversation with the lawyers, because my whole focus was on getting out rather than getting a furlough. And also, like, I had very, sort of, like, very low hopes that such requests would be granted after seeing, like, the level of cruelty that this government has taken in my case, in particular, but also seeing the, the stories of the people around me. Like, there was someone, who's also, like, wife gave birth to his daughter while he was in detention, and he wasn't able to see them at all. Worse than me that, like, his family couldn't visit him because they were undocumented. At least I was lucky that Noor was an American citizen, that she can visit me without that fear. The fear of also being detained. Yeah, that was like a fear. You know, in, in the detention center in Genoa, Louisiana, there were about 1200 detainees. When I go to the visitation room, I would be alone there. There wouldn't be any visits. And that shocked me at first, but then I learned that a lot of their families are either not in the United States or, or even undocumented, but even if documented, and they are on visas, they don't dare to come to visit them, fearing that they may be arrested as well. The other reason is, these detention centers are in the middle of literally, nowhere. Where I was in Louisiana and rural Louisiana, it was like an hour away from the closest airport that, you know, Alexandria, that there isn't any direct flight or many direct flights to from big cities. And that's also another part of the bad conditions there. They want detainees to give up very quickly. Because if they decide to fight, that would take time. If it's comfortable, people would actually fight. But if it's so, bad, people would say like, why would we fight our case? let's leave. If you're just joining us, my guest is Mahmoud Khalil. His memoir is called No Land to Stand On. We'll be back after a break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and today I am talking with Mahmoud Khalil about his new memoir, No Land to Stand On. It's an account of the 104 days he spent in immigration detention after his arrest for his role in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. You have this way of being able to articulate and speak about the things that have happened to you in a clear, measured way. It could be perceived as a detached way, in a way. And I just want to know where that comes from. Where does the feeling go? How are you able to sit in that place to be able to articulate? You know, what I unfortunately went through throughout my life, it was just like a series of difficult moments. You know, I was shot at the age of 16. I had to leave my home at the age of 18. I had to see my friends killed and disappeared in Syria at such a young age. And I feel like, unfortunately, I don't have the privilege to live my emotions or to reach to my emotions because I'm living through a very difficult time. I'm living through one crisis after the other that was imposed on me, whether because of our generational, like, or my family's generational exile and displacement. But also, I try to act rather than feel, which might be wrong, but really to channel that, all these strong feelings toward changing things rather than just, you know, because I feel like if I sit and just, like, feel these moments, I don't know, I may be, I may get crazy. So that's why I just, like, keep going and not think much about it and see how can I change things so that no other child would go through what, you know, like what Palestinian children go through, but also no other family can go through what my family can go through. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's what my family went through. Your mother, she has this same calm. You write about this and how you found out when you were 16 on the phone from a hospital telling her that you had been shot. Can you tell us what happened? I was shot by the Israeli army in 2011 when Palestinians were peacefully marching to Palestine. 2011 was a year widely known as the Arab Spring. And I was 16 back then. And I was, you know, I was galvanized by, you know, the Syrian people around me who were in the streets protesting the Assad regime by the Tunisian people as well. So we marched toward the borders. And while trying to cross the border, I was shot in my leg. And then, you know, I was transported to hospital and it's still there, like the shrapnel is still in my leg. You know, my mom also lived like a difficult life. She lost like two of her brothers, but also, you know, I mentioned in the book, one of my uncle's, her brothers also was disappeared in Israeli prisons in southern Lebanon for four months before they could know anything about him. So she's really a very fierce, still a very fierce woman. But part of the book title No Land to Stand On actually comes from my mom. In Syria, you know, my mom was very active, vibrant. And that's when I left them in 2013. Then I couldn't see my family for five years until we met again in Germany in 2018. And when I met her in Germany, I felt that she lost her spark. And she wasn't interested in many things. And I asked her, like, you know, what's happening? Why aren't you doing things the way that you were doing in Syria? And she told me, you know, do things for what? To lose the things as we did in Syria. And before that, our families lost. And in Palestine. And that, you know, hit me to the heart. And there's literally like, she said that in Arabic, like, there's no land to stand on, like, why we should keep doing that. I just want to, you know, live it day by day. That feeling like really applies to so many Palestinian families. How did she handle you being arrested? Um, yeah, she was calm then. Unsurprisingly, she was very calm. She was very calm about it. And she's so proud of me right now. Like, you know, the day I was I got released, she she threw a party back in Germany. But I think like she, she understands that, you know, like, we have to advocate for ourselves. Although like, it may seem that she surrendered or she gave up on on change, she still believes that, you know, the new generation can change things. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. And today I am talking with Mahmoud Khalil about his new memoir, No Land to Stand On. It's an account of the 104 days he spent in immigration detention after his arrest for his role in the pro-Palestinian protests at at Columbia University. Mahmoud, let's talk about Columbia for a moment. You've said that there were some anti-Semitic things that happened at Columbia, some unacceptable things. What did you see? Mahmoud Khalil: I believe the Palestinian movement or the Movement for Palestinian Liberation at Columbia was really rooted in dignity, safety and equality for everyone. And we are so proud to have built the this movement with our you know jewish peers whether they are students but also faculty and to me the movement itself absolutely there was no antisemitism there was no place for antisemitism there and that's what i keep repeating again and again um against like the the narrative that colombia itself helped push because you know we must take antisemitism seriously like all forms of bigotry um we have also to acknowledge when antisemitism is being used or weaponized to chill or like to protect israel from um from criticism and i went to shabbat dinners at the encampment there were cedar meals um and that's where i learned a lot about the jewish faith about why these jewish students were also protesting israel because they refused all these crimes that israel is committing was basically committed in their names and they refused that to happen of course there were like some sporadic antisemitic incidents that happened from mostly from individuals outside of colombia because they felt that colombia was you know that hot spot for um for activism but the students were conscious of of that and and they i remember like we had a teaching at colombia about i think it was i remember it was like antisemitism 101 uh just also to to help us like understand the same way we had a lot about like anti-blackness uh and like teachings um and about like palestinian and black solidarity palestinian and jewish solidarity so these students were really you know like trying to learn you know uh you mentioned this earlier that before you were arrested you were a student you had a job waiting for you and the things that come with the job just very simple things like health insurance for you and your new young family what do your days look like now and how are you supporting your family um i mean i don't have a health insurance neither me or my my wife uh we got dean health insurance just like this month uh we were able to do that through the new york health marketplace we raised over half a million dollars to cover the health insurance for our my uh my my legal fees and uh just the emergency fees uh i'm also lucky to be represented by mostly pro bono lawyers i have over i mean at this point over 30 lawyers working on on my cases uh a lot of them pro bono uh so it's really like i'm very grateful for this community around me uh because without the support i don't think i would be able to sustain myself and sustain this fight because it is so expensive insanely expensive to to have even one lawsuit now i'm i'm part of over seven lawsuits whether against the government against colombia or private act who made my targeting possible. So that's, I think, yeah, on the personal level, you know, my wife is a dentist, you know, dentists thankfully get good pay in this country, but she can't work. I mean, she was working up until recently, but with the uncertainty that we're living right now about possible deportation at any moment, it's so difficult for her to find another job. And also it only takes, you know, one Google search to learn about who she is. And at a time where, you know, we're really concerned about our safety. Right, there are these two realities you're living. I mean, you move through the world hyper-aware, you're checking restaurant politics before you book a table, you're choosing where to sit on a subway car. And yet this same city that you live in New York keeps changing. I mean, the government is telling you that it's glad you're here. You mentioned the people who have been helping you. People see you on the street and praise you. Baristas won't take your money. The government, though, is still trying to deport you while these strangers keep telling you that you belong here. Which of those has more power over your sense of whether you belong? You know, I'm still fighting. So that tells you the answer about, of course, like the kindness. And the support, of course, wins. There is a space, there is a possibility to live up to the American principles, to the American dream. Otherwise, I wouldn't be fighting this fight. You could be deported at any time. I mean, that is the reality of things, right? And your lawyers did tell you that there was a door. You could sign a paper. You could leave on your own, never come back to the U.S. What keeps you? What keeps you fighting for this particular stake? Because if I leave and don't fight, whatever this administration said about me would be the record that, you know, I wouldn't be able to look Dean in the eye, my son Dean in the eye, and tell him that I gave up on the fight at a time where I consider myself one of the privileged Palestinians who, who knows that, you know, Dean will be fed tonight, that my family wouldn't be bombed tonight by an Israeli missile, that I wouldn't be stopped at the checkpoint going to my school. So I take that responsibility with so much care that I need to fight. I shouldn't just shy away because like my silence wouldn't end anything. If I leave this country, I don't think that would end much of the misery of the immigrant's family in this country, but also for the Palestinian people. And I'm also encouraged, very encouraged by how people, have changed over these two, three years. I was so happy like to read so many letters in detention of people who did not follow Palestine or follow like any of these political questions, but like my story sort of like made them think more about it. So that gives me like so much hope and so much, I would say encouragement to continue to do what I'm doing right now. - Mahmoud Khalil, thank you so much for this conversation. - Thank you so much, Tanya. - Mahmoud Khalil's new memoir is "No Land to Stand On." We reached out to Columbia University and their spokesperson gave us the following statement. "Creating a campus environment where every member "of our community feels welcome, supported and safe "is fundamental to who we are as a university "and our academic mission. "It is a responsibility Columbia takes very seriously. "The university is committed to protecting our community "from discrimination and harassment "and responding promptly and appropriate when concerned. "We are committed to making sure "that our students and our students' parents "are able to make the best use of their time "and the resources that are available to them "and the resources that are available to them "in order to make sure that they have access "to the best of their lives. "We are committed to making sure "that our students and their parents "are able to make the best use of their time "and the resources that they need "and the resources that they need to be able to make "the best use of their time." - Mahmoud Khalil, thank you so much. - Thank you. - Thank you, Mahmoud. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Moseley.