被移民和海关执法局拘留了三个多月的哥伦比亚大学活动家马哈茂德·哈利勒在接受美国广播公司新闻直播节目主持人林西·戴维斯采访时讲述了他被拘留的时间，并发誓要继续为巴勒斯坦人民争取人权首次广播采访自从他周五被释放后。
哈利勒是一名绿卡持有者，在特朗普政府下仍面临被驱逐出境的威胁，他在接受美国广播公司新闻直播(ABC News Live)周一播出的采访中告诉戴维斯，尽管再次被拘留的威胁挥之不去，但他仍未被吓倒。
“任何威胁都吓不倒我，因为当有人被杀时，任何人都不应该保持沉默。没有人，”哈利勒说，他在2023-2024年帮助领导了一系列哥伦比亚大学抗议反对以色列在加沙的军事行动。
30岁的哈利勒在美国大学校园爆发的亲巴勒斯坦运动期间是哥伦比亚大学的研究生，唐纳德·特朗普总统在2024年总统竞选期间发誓要“粉碎”这场运动。
唐纳德·特朗普总统在2024年总统竞选期间发誓要“粉碎”抗议活动，因为他声称这些抗议活动是反犹太主义的温床。
“如果你坐下来与特朗普总统交谈，你会说什么?”戴维斯问哈利勒。
“我的主要信息是，(特朗普总统)在竞选期间发誓要让这个国家的巴勒斯坦运动倒退20年。但他对我所做的实际上推动了巴勒斯坦解放事业很多年，”哈利勒说。
据报道，特朗普去年在竞选期间的一次闭门会议上告诉捐助者，他将粉碎大学抗议活动。
这场运动是由2023年10月7日开始的以色列-哈马斯战争引发的哈马斯的恐怖袭击在以色列，至少1200人被杀，251人被劫为人质。据以色列官员称，仍有50名人质被哈马斯关押，另有27人被认为已经死亡。
据哈马斯控制的加沙卫生部称，这场战争对加沙的巴勒斯坦人造成了严重影响，有55，104人丧生。
“我们没有要求巴勒斯坦人应该得到特殊待遇，”哈利勒在谈到学生领导的运动的要求时说。“我们字面上说我们只想要正义和平等。'
马哈茂德·哈利勒是谁?
哈利勒是谁3月8日被拘留在他的纽约公寓大楼里，是特朗普政府下第一个被ICE拘留的高调亲巴勒斯坦活动人士。随后，其他几名学生积极分子被捕。
“我感觉自己真的被绑架了，”哈利勒回忆道。“所有我纵容自己的‘了解你的权利’感觉都是虚无的，因为那一刻ICE明确表示你没有任何权利。”
哈利勒是巴勒斯坦难民的孙子，在大马士革南部的一个小难民营出生并长大。叙利亚内战期间，他在黎巴嫩再次成为难民，后来移居阿尔及利亚，并在那里获得了公民身份。Khalil说，他在2020年首次被哥伦比亚大学录取，但由于新冠肺炎疫情奖，他不得不推迟到2022年。
他与美国公民努尔·阿卜杜拉博士结婚，并于4月21日生下他们的第一个孩子，取名迪恩。哈利勒要求在他儿子出生时在场，但遭到拒绝，他直到5月22日被拘留时才见到他。
他说，错过儿子的出生是他被拘留期间最困难的部分。
“你被拒绝是什么意思?”戴维斯问道。
哈利勒说:“这是任何政府都会做的最残忍的事情。”。
当被问及获释后与儿子共度的第一夜是什么样的时候，哈利勒说他“睡不着觉”。
“我只是看着他，和他在一起，”他说。“我会对迪恩做出的任何表情保持警惕，因为见证他出生的那一刻，真的在很多层面上影响了我。”
他为什么被拘留?
在拘留美国合法居民哈利勒时，特朗普政府辩称，他继续留在该国将对美国的外交政策构成风险。
“白宫说你散发了支持哈马斯的传单。卢比奥部长说你制造了一个骚扰犹太学生的环境。特朗普总统说我们得让他滚出我们的国家。你认为你为什么会被视为这样的威胁?”戴维斯问哈利勒。
哈利勒回应道:“因为我所代表的运动与本届政府的努力背道而驰。”。“他们试图把我描绘成一个暴力的人。他们试图把我描绘成一个恐怖分子，一个疯子，但却没有提出任何证据，没有为他们的说法提供任何可信度。”
在谈到巴勒斯坦运动时，哈利勒说，反犹太主义或“任何形式的种族主义”都“没有立足之地”
他说:“任何形式的种族主义都没有立足之地，包括巴勒斯坦运动中的反黑人、反犹太主义，美国的犹太学生和普通民众是巴勒斯坦运动不可分割的一部分。”。
美国地区法官迈克尔·法比亚兹发布了一项初步禁令6月11日，禁止特朗普政府继续拘留他，理由是他对国家安全构成威胁。但哈利勒又被拘留了一周，直到周五获释。此前，政府声称哈利勒在绿卡申请中谎报信息，并主张继续拘留他。
“特朗普政府已经表示，你在绿卡上有疏漏，并歪曲了自己。这是真的吗?”戴维斯问道。
“绝对不行，”哈利勒说。“他们在我被捕一周后增加了这些指控，因为他们知道他们的第一项指控也是错误的。”
接下来是什么
哈利勒是周五发布在法官Farbiarz签发保释令后，他从路易斯安那州耶拿的移民和海关执法机构被释放。法官说，政府没有试图证明释放哈利勒会以某种方式对他们造成不可挽回的伤害，或者哈利勒有逃跑的风险。
“所有这些证据表明，没有暴力，没有财产破坏，没有任何可以被定性为煽动暴力的东西，”法尔比亚兹谈到哈利勒时说。
法官表示，释放哈利勒的条件不应包括电子监控或要求立即缴纳保证金。
裁决释放哈利勒的同时，路易斯安那州耶拿的一名移民法官拒绝了哈利勒的庇护请求，并命令他继续被拘留，但法比亚兹的命令取代了这一裁决。
国土安全部严厉批评了法官释放哈利勒的决定，并在周五的一份声明中表示，该裁决是“司法部门失控成员破坏国家安全的又一个例子”，并认为“移民法官，而不是地区法官，有权决定哈利勒是否应该被释放或拘留。”
“他们的行为不仅否定了2024年选举的结果，还破坏了公众对法院的信心，对我们的宪法制度造成了巨大伤害，”声明说。
随着案件的进展，哈利勒表示，他“非常担心”自己和家人的安全，并表示他知道，如果特朗普政府的上诉在联邦法院获胜，他可能会再次被拘留。
考虑到“未来还有很长的一段战斗”，他说政府的威胁不会阻止他说出来。
哈利勒说:“(特朗普政府)想让我成为一个例子，这样就没有人敢谈论巴勒斯坦了。”。“但这不会阻止我继续倡导正确的事情。”
Mahmoud Khalil, in 1st broadcast interview, says he'll continue to 'advocate for what's right'
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University activist who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than three months, spoke with ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis about his time in custody and vowed to continue his right for Palestinian human rights in thefirst broadcast interviewsince his release on Friday.
Khalil, a green card holder who still faces the threat of deportation under the Trump administration, told Davis in an interview that aired on ABC News Live's Prime on Monday that despite the lingering threat of renewed detention, he remains undeterred.
"Not any threat would deter me because no one should stay silent when people are getting killed. No one," said Khalil, who in 2023-2024 helped lead a series ofColumbia University protestsagainst the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
Khalil, 30, was a graduate student at Columbia during the pro-Palestinian movement that erupted on college campuses across the U.S. -- one that President Donald Trump vowed to "crush" during his 2024 presidential campaign.
President Donald Trump, during his 2024 presidential campaign, vowed to "crush" the protests because he claimed they were a hotbed of antisemitism.
"If you were to sit down and have a conversation with President Trump, what would you say?" Davis asked Khalil.
"My main message is that [President Trump] vowed that he would set the Palestinian movement in this country 20 years back during his campaign. But what he did to me actually advanced the cause of Palestinian liberation for many years," Khalil said.
Trump last year reportedly told donors at a closed-door meeting during his campaign that he would crush the college protests.
The movement was sparked by the Israel-Hamas war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, withHamas' terrorist attackon Israel, where at least 1,200 were killed and 251 were taken hostage. Fifty hostages still remain in Hamas captivity, and an additional 27 believed to be dead, according to Israeli officials.
The war has taken a severe toll on the Palestinian population in Gaza, with 55,104 people killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
"We did not ask that Palestinians should receive special treatment," Khalil said regarding the demands of the student-led movement. "We literally said we only want justice and equality.'
Who is Mahmoud Khalil?
Khalil, who wasdetained on March 8in his New York apartment building, was the first high-profile pro-Palestinian activist to be detained by ICE under the Trump administration. That was followed by the arrest of several other student activists.
"I felt like I was literally kidnapped," Khalil recalled. "All the 'know your rights' that I've indulged myself into felt like nothing, because at that moment ICE made it clear that you have no rights whatsoever."
The grandson of Palestinian refugees, Khalil was born and raised in a small refugee camp in southern Damascus. He became a refugee again in Lebanon during the Syrian civil war and later moved to Algeria, where he has citizenship. Khalil said that he was first accepted into Columbia University in 2020 but had to defer until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He is married to Dr. Noor Abdalla, an American citizen, who gave birth on April 21 to the couple's first child, a boy named Deen. Khalil's request to be present for his son's birth was denied and he did not meet him until May 22 while in custody.
He said that missing his son's birth was the most difficult part of his detention.
"What did that mean that you were denied that?" Davis asked.
"That's the most cruel thing that any administration would do," Khalil said.
Asked what his first night with his son was like after his release, Khalil said that he "couldn't sleep."
"[I was] just looking at him, being with him," he said. "I would be alert to any sort of expression that Deen would make because the moment that was stripped of me, of witnessing his birth, really impacted me on so many levels."
Why was he detained?
In detaining Khalil -- a legal U.S. resident -- the Trump administration argued that his continued presence in the country would pose a risk to U.S. foreign policy.
"The White House has said that you distributed pro-Hamas fliers. Secretary Rubio said that you created an environment of harassment toward Jewish students. President Trump said we got to get him the hell out of our country. Why do you think that you are perceived as such a threat?" Davis asked Khalil.
"Because I represent a movement that goes against what this administration is trying to do," Khalil responded. "They try to portray me as a violent person. They try to portray me as a terrorist, as some lunatic, but not presenting any evidence, not presenting any shred of credibility to their claims."
When talking about the Palestinian movement, Khalil said there is "no place" for antisemitism or "any form of racism."
"There's no place for any form of racism, including anti-Blackness, antisemitism in the Palestine movement, and the Jewish students and people in general in the United States are an integral part of the Palestinian movement," he said.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz issued apreliminary injunctionon June 11 barring the Trump administration from continuing to detain him based on the assertion that he's a threat to national security. But Khalil was detained for an additional week until his release on Friday after the government argued for his continued detention based on their allegation that he misrepresented information on his green card application.
"The Trump administration has said that you made omissions on your green card and misrepresented yourself. Is there any truth to that?" Davis asked.
"Absolutely not," Khalil said. "They added these allegations a week after my arrest because they knew that their first allegation is also wrong."
What comes next
Khalil wasreleased on Fridayfrom an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Jena, Louisiana, after Judge Farbiarz issued an order granting his release on bail. The judge said the government made no attempt to prove that Khalil's release would irreparably harm them in some way or that Khalil represented a flight risk.
"What all that evidence adds up to is a lack of violence, a lack of property destruction, a lack of anything that might be characterized as incitement to violence," Farbiarz said of Khalil.
The judge said that the conditions of Khalil's release shall not include electronic monitoring or a requirement that a bond be immediately posted.
The ruling to release Khalil came at the same time an immigration judge in Jena, Louisiana, denied Khalil's request for asylum and ordered him to remain detained -- but Farbiarz' order superseded that ruling.
The Department of Homeland Security sharply criticized the judge's decision to release Khalil, saying in a statement on Friday that the ruling is "yet another example of how out-of-control members of the judicial branch are undermining national security," and arguing "an immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained."
"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 statement said.
As his case moves forward, Khalil said that he is "very concerned" about his and family's safety and said he knows that he could be detained again if the Trump administration's appeal prevails in federal court.
Reflecting on "a very long fight ahead," he said that the administration's threats will not stop him from speaking out.
"[The Trump administration] want to make me an example so that no one would dare to speak about Palestine," Khalil said. "But it would not stop me from continuing to advocate for what's right."
