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ICE Denies Mahmoud Khalil's Request to Hold Newborn Son: Attorneys [1]
['Sonam Sheth', 'Dan Gooding', 'Todd Armstrong', 'Aron Solomon']
Date: 2025-05-21 14:56:17-04:00
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
A private prison group working on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denied a request from Mahmoud Khalil to hold his newborn son during a visit, Khalil's attorneys said Wednesday.
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment via email. A spokesperson for the prison, GEO Group, referred questions back to ICE and DHS.
The Context
Khalil is a Columbia University graduate and green card holder who the Trump administration is seeking to deport over his participation in campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza.
The administration alleges that Khalil's protests amount to pro-Hamas propaganda. He is one of several international students who have been targeted for deportation over their student activism.
Khalil's wife, Noor Abdalla, was eight months pregnant at the time of his arrest on March 8, and she gave birth while he was being detained.
Mahmoud Khalil at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York on April 29, 2024. Mahmoud Khalil at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York on April 29, 2024. Associated Press
What To Know
Khalil is being held at an ICE detention center in Jena, Louisiana. His lawyers asked if he could hold his baby, who is now about a month old, when his wife visited him. The request was denied.
Khalil's attorneys submitted a court filing with email correspondence that appeared to support their claim.
"I am writing again to ask you both...for an exception to [the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center's] standing no-contact social visitation policy," one of Khalil's lawyers said in a May 20 email to a facility administrator and two others whose email addresses were redacted. "We come to you requesting your assistance in uniting a new father with his less than one-month old first-born child, who, as you know, was born while his father was detained."
The facility administrator replied on Wednesday morning: "The visit will remain as non-contact as previously arranged. Thank you."
The denial capped days of back-and-forth between the GEO Group facility administrator and Khalil's attorneys. His lawyers repeatedly asked officials to permit a "contact visit" between Khalil, his wife and his newborn son. The facility administrator said that only "non-contact" visitation was approved.
What People Are Saying
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement: "The government chose to arrest and detain Mahmoud thousands of miles away in the Louisiana detention gulags to punish him for his support for Palestinian human rights, and is doubling down on their retaliatory punishment by denying him the most elementary human contact with his wife and child. ICE leadership and elected officials must act to remedy this grotesque and unnecessary inhumanity for Mahmoud – and for all others."
Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said in a statement: "Mahmoud Khalil deserves to hold his son. Noor Abdalla deserves to see her husband meet their child. And we, as a country, deserve better than policies rooted in cruelty."
Update 5/21/25, 4:14 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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[1] Url:
https://www.newsweek.com/ice-denies-mahmoud-khalils-request-hold-newborn-son-attorneys-2075413
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