Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil said that his time in an ICE detention center was “a very dehumanizing experience” in a Friday interview with CNN.
“It was a very, very dehumanizing experience, for someone who was not accused of any crime, whatsoever,” he told CNN’s Christine Amanpour.
Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian and legal permanent resident of the US, has been one of the poster children for the pro-Palestinian encampments at his alma mater, Columbia. He was released in late June after nearly three months in an ICE detention facility.
He was one of the first people that the Trump administration detained for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities across the United States.
Khalil claims that he was punished for his political activism, in violation of freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
CNN claimed that he was held without a charge, and has previously reported that ICE agents arrested him without a warrant.
'I knew that I would eventually prevail'
However, Khalil alleged that he knew that he would be released eventually.
“From the moment that I was detained, I knew that I would eventually prevail,” he said. “What I simply did is protesting a genocide.”
On Thursday, his lawyers filed a $20 million claim against the US administration for falsely imprisoning Khalil. Khalil’s lawyers said on Thursday that they submitted the claim against President Donald Trump's Homeland Security and State departments under a law requiring individuals to seek damages directly from the government before filing a lawsuit. Officials have six months to respond.
“They want to conflate any speech for the rights of Palestinians with speech that’s supporting terrorism, which is totally wrong,” he told CNN.
“It’s a message that they want to make an example out of me, even if you are a legal resident… that we will find a way to come after you, to punish you, if you speak, against what we want.”
A DHS spokesperson called Khalil's claim "absurd" and said the Trump administration acted well within its legal authority to detain Khalil.
Khalil was arrested in March in his New York City apartment building. He was moved from there to New Jersey, then to Texas, then to an ICE detention center in Louisiana.
“The moment you enter such ICE facilities, your rights literally stay outside,” he said.
“I was literally moved from one place to another, like an object. I was shackled all the time.”
He claimed that the food was inedible, and told CNN that he switched to vegetarian options after he threw up from the meat there. He also said that the facilities were freezing and that detainees were not provided with additional blankets.
"The Trump administration are doing their best to dehumanize everyone here," he said upon his release from a Louisiana ICE facility. "No one is illegal, no human is illegal."
Khalil told Amanpour that the hardest part of his detention was missing the birth of his first child. His wife, Noor Abdalla, who is a US citizen, was eight months pregnant when he was arrested.
“Missing the birth of my child. I think that was the most difficult moment in my life… We put so many requests to be able, to attend that that moment,” Khalil said.
“I don’t think I would be able to forgive them, for taking that moment away from, from me.”
The Louisiana detention center told his attorneys that it had a blanket no-contact policy for security purposes.
“The first time I saw my child was literally through thick glass. He was literally in front of me, like, five centimeters away from me… I couldn’t hold him.
“And when the moment came to hold him, it was by court order, to have one hour… with him.”