Mahmoud Khalil Returns to Columbia to Launch Memoir Amid Deportation Fight

One hundred people packed into a room at Columbia University on Tuesday to hear Mahmoud Khalil speak for the first time since his arrest in March 2025. The 31-year-old graduate returned to New York to discuss his new memoir, No Land to Stand On: Notes from Detention. He described the gathering as a victory.

Khalil was detained on March 8, 2025, during a federal crackdown on foreign student activists. Immigration authorities held him for three months without criminal charges, despite his status as a permanent US resident. He was released from custody on June 20, 2025. The Trump administration continues to pursue his deportation.

In an interview with the AFP news agency, Khalil argued that the public mood is shifting. He stated that the American public is finally looking at Palestinians as equal humans. He pointed to recent electoral results as evidence of this change, noting that more progressive candidates are being elected to US Congress and other positions of power. He named Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the US Senate in Michigan, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as examples of this trend.

Khalil was a leading figure in the 2024 student demonstrations at Columbia, which became a focal point for campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. He accused university leadership of trying to erase Palestinian voices on campus. He criticized the university's decision to authorize the New York Police Department to clear demonstrators from the Manhattan campus. He told AFP that Columbia chose brutality and repression. The university said at the time that the demonstrations posed a safety threat. Khalil also said the university failed to protect him from harassment before his detention.

Some Jewish groups on social media opposed his return. A Columbia spokesperson said the university is committed to rigorous debate and respectful dialogue across differing perspectives. The statement added that the university supports the right of faculty members to organize academic events. It clarified that an invitation to speak does not signify university endorsement of a speaker's views.

Khalil said part of his struggle is about returning to an ordinary life. He described a wish to go back to being a young father who takes his son to the park with his wife, undisturbed. He framed the legal battle as a matter of free expression. He said his fight is not only about whether he gets to stay in the country. He stated it is about whether people in the country can speak their minds.