(NEW YORK) — The wife of pro-Palestinian demonstrator Mahmoud Khalil gave birth to their first child while he remains in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.
Khalil, who is being held at a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, was denied a request for temporary release to meet their son, according to emails reviewed by ABC News.
Khalil’s lawyers requested a two-week furlough, noting that his wife, Dr. Abdalla, had gone into labor “eight days earlier than expected,” an email addressed to New Orleans ICE ERO Field Office Director Mellissa B. Harper shows.
In the email, the lawyers also recommended that Khalil could be placed in ankle monitor and could do check-ins with ICE.
Harper denied the request, writing in an email, “After consideration of the submitted information and a review of your client’s case, your request for furlough is denied.”
Dr. Noor Abdalla released a statement after the birth, saying, “My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”
On April 11, an immigration judge ruled that Khalil is removable after Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a section of the law that deemed him deportable because, the government claimed, his continued presence in the US would have an adverse consequence on foreign policy.
The Louisiana judge has given Khalil’s lawyers a deadline of April 23 to file applications for relief to stop his deportation. The judge said if they failed to make the deadline, she would file an order of removal to either Syria or Algeria.
While a student at Columbia University, Khalil was part of a leadership group protesting the war in Gaza. Khalil took part in negotiations with school administrators demanding the institution cut ties with Israel and divest from Israeli companies. Khalil finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December and is set to graduate in the spring.
He was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his Columbia housing in March.
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