National Lawyers Guild

3/12/25 National Lawyers Guild International Condemns the Targeted Detention of Palestinian Student Organizer Mahmoud Khalil and Reiterates its Call for “Sanctuary Universities” to Protect their Students and Workers from Escalating State Repression The National Lawyers Guild and its International Committee condemn the escalation of federal repression. The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil demonstrates a dangerous increase in both the criminalization of protest in the United States and the targeting of immigrants. It is also a frightening evolution in the ongoing assault against the movement of students and communities across the globe who have been using their voices to oppose Israel’s decades-long Genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine, which, with the support of U.S. imperialism, has only worsened over the past 17 months. Under international law, particularly the Genocide Convention, individuals as well as governments have a duty to prevent and not be complicit in genocide. Instead, the federal government is actively punishing those who oppose it. We emphasize that the actions of the Department of Homeland Security were unlawful. Agents had no grounds to arrest Mahmoud Khalil and did not produce a warrant, threatening his U.S. Citizen wife with arrest if she tried to intervene. Reportedly, agents hung up the phone on Mahmoud’s attorney when his wife contacted her and put her in touch with the agents. Mahmoud is a graduate student at Columbia University who was actively involved with Columbia's Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and a Lawful Permanent Resident. As with other immigrants, a Lawful Permanent Resident, or Green-Card holder, is protected by the Constitution, which includes First Amendment Free-Speech rights and Fifth Amendment Due-Process rights. Mahmoud's arrest comes in the context of the Trump administration's new federal initiative to identify organizers active in Palestine solidarity protests who have student visas and target them for deportation. It also follows Columbia University's crackdown on students organizing against Israel's genocide in Gaza, including a previous attempt to suspend Mahmoud for his activism. In response to threats of deportation and news that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would begin approaching people in Columbia's neighborhood as part of this operation, the university issued guidance advising students, faculty, and staff not to interfere. This marked a reversal of the school’s previous status as a “sanctuary campus,” capitulating to the government's efforts. The day before ICE officials disappeared and detained him, Mahmoud begged for help from the Columbia administration, citing his fear of abduction and intervention and urging the University to protect him from being targeted. The school never responded. Read our full statement: https://lnkd.in/eCwXT9YD

We partnered with Progressive International to co-convene an emergency delegation to the West Bank of occupied Palestine, on October 28, 2024. The delegation brought together legal experts, human rights defenders, and parliamentary representatives to hear witness testimony, conduct site visits, and gather evidence of these violations of international law. The full report is below, with this urgent call to action: “Today, our delegation — co-convened by the Progressive International, the National Lawyers Guild of the United States, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers — concludes its investigation of Israel’s systematic violations of international law with a clear, concrete, and urgent call to governments across the globe: now is the time for a total energy, economic and arms embargo against Israel. Nothing less can detain the genocide of the Palestinian people and dismantle the architecture of apartheid in their Occupied Territories.”