“After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on the way home,” said his wife, the US citizen Noor Abdalla.
The verdict is “not nearly” good again the injustices, “which the Trump government of our family and so many others have done to silence it because they are against the continuing genocide of Israel on the Palestinians,” she added. Abdalla had had to give birth to the couple in New York in April without her husband because the US immigration authority ICE Khalils had rejected temporary release for childbirth.
The Khalil from Algeria was one of the most famous faces of the protests against the war in the Gaza Strip at the Columbia University in New York. He was arrested by ICE officials in early March, although he has a permanent US stay permit, a so-called “Green Card”, and is married to a US citizen.
Amol Sinha from the Civil Rights Movement American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in New Jersey welcomed the court decision as an “important step to restore Mr. Khalil, which is still illegally pursued by the federal government due to his commitment to the rights of the Palestinians,” said Sinha.
After his arrest on March 8, the Khalil, who was in New York, had been moved to a deportation prison in the southern state of Louisiana.
In the case of Khalil and numerous other pro-Palestinian activists who were deprived of their US visa, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio refers to a law that had been passed in the United States in the 1950s. It enables foreigners who are classified as opponents of US politics. Rubio argues that the protection of freedom of expression, anchored in the US constitution, does not apply to foreigners.
