Interfaith Alliance Condemns Trump Admin’s Unjust Detention of Activist Mahmoud Khalil

Contact: Ben DePasquale, bdepasquale@westendstrategy.com

WASHINGTON, DC – Interfaith Alliance, a national organization that advocates for inclusive democracy and religious freedom, expressed deep alarm at the Trump Administration’s arrest and threatened deportation of permanent US resident Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student protest movement. 

A wide range of elected officials, civil rights groups, Jewish organizations and other advocates have made clear that Khalil’s groundless arrest is a stunning case of authoritarian overreach that violates Khalil’s First Amendment rights and his rights as a permanent US resident – and will do nothing to make any community in this country safer. A federal judge has temporarily blocked any deportation of Khalil, who has been removed from his home in NY and is reportedly being held at an ICE facility in Louisiana. 

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president of Interfaith Alliance, released the following statement: 

“As an organization dedicated to civil rights and multi-faith democracy, we are appalled at the Trump Administration’s blatant disregard for Mahmoud Khalil’s Constitutional rights – including the First Amendment right to free speech and the right to due process. Far from combating antisemitism or other forms of hate, this arrest is designed to sow division between vulnerable communities and to intimidate and threaten all those – especially immigrants – engaged in activism and protest.

“What starts with the targeting of Mahmoud Khalil and other Palestinian protesters will not end there. Whether or not one agrees with or supports these protesters’ views or actions, we must recognize that they are the canaries in the coalmine of the Trump Administration’s authoritarian tactics. They are unjustly using immigration enforcement as a tool to silence political opponents – even pulling legal permanent residents from their homes and detaining them, without charge, in another state. 

“A threat to vulnerable communities of any faith or nationality is a threat to all of us – and we can only uphold our collective rights and freedoms by standing together in defense of democracy and the rule of law. Interfaith Alliance will continue to work with our partners and mobilize Americans of diverse faiths and beliefs to uphold civil liberties for everyone in our country, and to challenge an Administration that is determined to rollback our fundamental freedoms.”

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