Mahmoud Khalil reunites with family after more than 100 days in Ice detention
"Donald Trump’s ‘chilling effect’ on free speech and dissent is threatening US democracy "MAGA death threats drive Trump agenda - Violent Threats Against Members of Congress Spiked as Senate Considered Trump’s Nominees"
Columbia graduate and legal US resident was targeted by White House for speaking out against the Israeli war in Gaza
Nina Lakhani in New York Sun 22 Jun 2025 04.23 AEST
Mahmoud Khalil flanked by his wife, Noor Abdalla (right), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) at Newark airport in New Jersey on 21 June 2025. Photograph: Angelina Katsanis/Reuters
Mahmoud Khalil – the Palestinian rights activist, Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident of the US who had been held by federal immigration authorities for more than three months – has been reunited with his wife and infant son.
Khalil, the most high-profile student to be targeted by the Trump administration for speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza, arrived in New Jersey on Saturday at about 1pm – two hours later than expected after his flight was first rerouted to Philadelphia.
Khalil smiled broadly at his cheering supporters as he emerged from security at Newark airport pushing his infant son in a black stroller, with his right fist raised and a Palestinian keffiyeh draped across his shoulders. He was accompanied by his wife, Noor Abdalla, as well as members of his legal team and the New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“If they threaten me with detention, even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine,” he said at a brief press conference after landing. “I just want to go back and continue the work I was already doing, advocating for Palestinian rights, a speech that should actually be celebrated rather than punished.”
“This is not over, and we will have to continue to support this case,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “The persecution based on political speech is wrong, and it is a violation of all of our first amendment rights, not just Mahmoud’s.”
The Trump administration “knows that they’re waging a losing legal battle,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens.
Khalil embraced some of his supporters, many of whom were also wearing keffiyehs in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Khalil was released from a Louisiana immigration detention facility on Friday evening after a federal judge ruled that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter was unconstitutional and ordered his immediate release on bail.
Khalil was sent to Jena, Louisiana, shortly after being seized by plainclothes US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in the lobby of his university residence in front of his heavily pregnant wife, who is a US citizen, in early March.
The 30-year-old, who has not been charged with a crime, was forced to miss the birth of his first child, Deen, by the Trump administration. Khalil had been permitted to see his wife and son briefly – and only once – earlier in June. The American green card holder was held by Ice for 104 days.
In ordering Khalil’s immediate release on Friday, federal judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, found that the government had failed to provide evidence that the graduate was a flight risk or danger to the public. “[He] is not a danger to the community,” Farbiarz ruled. “Period, full stop.”
The judge also ruled that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter by detaining them was unconstitutional.
Speaking to reporters outside the Jena detention facility where an estimated 1,000 men are being held, Khalil said: “Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this. That doesn’t mean there is a right person for this. There is no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide.”
“No one is illegal – no human is illegal,” he said. “Justice will prevail no matter what this administration may try.”
The Trump administration immediately filed a notice of appeal, NBC reported.
Khalil was ordered to surrender his passport and green card to Ice officials in Jena, Louisiana, as part of his conditional release. The order also limits Khalil’s travel to a handful of US states, including New York and Michigan to visit family, for court hearings in Louisiana and New Jersey, and for lobbying in Washington DC. He must notify the Department of Homeland Security of his address within 48 hours of arriving in New York.
Khalil’s detention was widely condemned as a dangerous escalation in the Trump administration’s assault on speech, which is ostensibly protected by the first amendment to the US constitution. His detention was the first in a series of high-profile arrests .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/trump-immigration-people-detained-deported-cases .. of international students who had spoken out about Israel’s siege of Gaza, its occupation of Palestinian territories and their university’s financial ties to companies that profit from Israeli military strikes.
Khalil’s release marks the latest setback for the Trump administration, which had pledged to deport pro-Palestinian international students en masse, claiming without evidence that speaking out against the Israeli state amounts to antisemitism.
In Khalili’s case, multiple Jewish students and faculty had submitted court documents in his support. Khalil was a lead negotiator between the Jewish-led, pro-Palestinian campus protests at Columbia in 2024. And during an appearance on CNN, he said, “The liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand, and you cannot achieve one without the other.”
In addition to missing the birth of his son, Khalil was kept from his family’s first Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and his graduation from Columbia while held in custody from 8 March to 20 June.
Three other students detained on similar grounds to Khalil – Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri and Mohsen Mahdawi – were previously released while their immigration cases are pending. Others voluntarily left the country after deportation proceedings against them were opened. Another [Yunseo Chung .. Excerpt: On Monday, Chung sued Donald Trump and other high-ranking administrations to stop their targeting of her and other students. And on Tuesday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to halt its efforts to arrest and deport Chung, saying “nothing in the record” indicated that Chung posed a danger to the community.].. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/columbia-gaza-protester-yunseo-chung-lawsuit .. is in hiding as she fights her case.
On Sunday, a rally to celebrate Khalil’s release – and protest against the ongoing detention by thousands of other immigrants in the US and Palestinians held without trial in Israel – will be held at 5.30pm ET at the steps of the Cathedral of St John the Divine in upper Manhattan. Khalil is expected to address supporters, alongside his legal representatives.
“Mahmoud’s release reignites our determination to continue fighting until all our prisoners are released – whether in Palestine or the United States, until we see the end of the genocide and the siege on Gaza, and until we enforce an arms embargo on the Israel,” said Miriam Osman of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
Columbia University took the final step in capitulating to Trump's demand to control what/who teaches at Columbia...the WP reports today CU has agreed to a Monitor assigned to the school to ensure CU follows federal government control of higher education, including control over contracts, curriculum, hiring and discipline. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=176489874
Trump Takes America’s ‘Imperial Presidency’ to a New Level
------ "Donald Trump’s ‘chilling effect’ on free speech and dissent is threatening US democracy "MAGA death threats drive Trump agenda - Violent Threats Against Members of Congress Spiked as Senate Considered Trump’s Nominees" See also: Narcissist and Solipsist, why not both - Trump isn’t a narcissist – he’s a solipsist. And it means a few simple things [...]“This is from when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt,” he told us, as I recall. “It says that Alexander was the child of Amen, the god of all the gods, the one who was so great that even to this day we say his name at the end of prayers.” “Why would Alexander make that claim?” I asked. “Because” he said, “it’s a lot easier to seize and hold power when people think you have a connection to their idea of divinity. ------
In his first year back in the White House, President Trump has greatly expanded executive power while embracing the trappings of royalty in ways not seen in the modern era.
By Peter Baker Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent, has covered the past six presidencies and wrote a book about President Trump’s first term. He reported from Washington.
Dec. 21, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET
[Four photographs] New York Times Photographs by Kenny Holston, Eric Lee, and Haiyun Jiang
When President Trump hosted the crown prince of Saudi Arabia last month, he pulled out all the stops. To the traditional pomp of a formal White House visit, he added a few even fancier touches: a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and long, regal tables for the lavish dinner in the East Room instead of the typical round tables.
For surprised White House veterans who were paying attention, the unusual flourishes looked a little familiar. Just two months earlier, King Charles III of Britain welcomed Mr. Trump for a state visit that included, yes, a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and a long, regal table for the lavish dinner in St. George’s Hall at Windsor Palace.
In his first year back in office, Mr. Trump has unabashedly adopted the trappings of royalty just as he has asserted virtually unbridled power to transform American government and society to his liking. In both pageantry and policy, Mr. Trump has established a new, more audacious version of the imperial presidency that goes far beyond even the one associated with Richard M. Nixon, for whom the term was popularized half a century ago.
He no longer holds back, or is held back, as in the first term. Trump 2.0 is Trump 1.0 unleashed. The gold trim in the Oval Office, the demolition of the East Wing to be replaced by a massive ballroom, the plastering of his name and face on government buildings and now even the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the designation of his own birthday as a free-admission holiday at national parks — it all speaks to a personal aggrandizement and accumulation of power with meager resistance from Congress or the Supreme Court.
Nearly 250 years after American colonists threw off their king, this is arguably the closest the country has come during a time of general peace to the centralized authority of a monarch. Mr. Trump takes it upon himself to reinterpret a constitutional amendment .. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-birthright-citizenship.html .. and to eviscerate agencies and departments .. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/upshot/congress-doge-cuts-mystery.html .. created by Congress. He dictates to private institutions how to run their affairs. He sends troops into American streets and wages an unauthorized war against nonmilitary boats in the Caribbean. He openly uses law enforcement for what his own chief of staff calls “score settling” against his enemies, he dispenses pardons to favored allies and he equates criticism to sedition punishable by death.
President Trump hosted the crown prince of Saudi Arabia for a dinner at the White House that had all the trappings of his visit with King Charles III of Britain. Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Mr. Trump’s reinvention of the presidency has altered the balance of power in Washington in profound ways that may endure long after he departs the scene. Authority once seized by one branch of government is rarely given back willingly. Actions that once shocked the system can eventually become seen as normal. While other presidents pushed the limits, Mr. Trump has blown right through them and dared anyone to stop him.
“His second term in many respects represents not simply a break from presidential norms and expectations,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “It’s also a culmination of 75 years in which presidents have reached for more and more power.”
It is also a culmination of four years of planning between Mr. Trump’s first term and his second. The last time around, he was a political novice who did not understand how government worked and surrounded himself with advisers who tried to restrain his most extreme instincts. This time, he arrived in office with a plan to accomplish what he did not in his first term, and a team of like-minded loyalists intent on remaking the country.
“The president knew exactly what he wanted to do coming into office this time,” said Jason Miller, a longtime Trump adviser. “Now the president had four years under his belt. He knows exactly how everything works. He knows all the international players. He knows all the national players. He knew what strategies and tactics worked the first go around and what strategies didn’t work.”
Strong and Weak
The presidency is a living organism, shaped by the person inhabiting it, whether it be self-styled men of action like Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, father figures like Dwight D. Eisenhower, legislative wizards like Lyndon B. Johnson or captivating communicators like Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. More than the sum of the clauses of the Constitution’s Article II, it is an evolving construct, one that has adapted to the ever-changing challenges of a complex and fast-moving world.
Mr. Trump wears it like a cloak. Power is the leitmotif of his second term. For the record, he disclaims royal aspirations. “I’m not a king,” he said after millions of Americans took to the streets in “No Kings” demonstrations in October. But at the same time, he embraces the comparison, at least in part to troll his critics but also, it seems, because he enjoys the notion.
He and his staff have posted images of him in monarchical regalia, including an A.I.-generated illustration of him wearing a crown and flying a fighter jet labeled “KING TRUMP” that dumps excrement on protesters. He delighted when the South Koreans gave him a replica of an ancient golden crown. “LONG LIVE THE KING!” he wrote about himself on social media.
A “No Kings” demonstration in Portland, Ore., in June, one of several that have taken place across the nation this year in protest of Mr. Trump’s monarchical tendencies.Credit...Jordan Gale for The New York Times
To his supporters, Mr. Trump’s assertion of vast power is invigorating, not disturbing. In a country they see in decline, a strong hand is the only way to dislodge a liberal, “woke” deep state that in their view has suffocated everyday Americans to the advantage of unwelcome immigrants, street criminals, globalist tycoons, underqualified minorities and out-of-touch elites. Voters struggling to maintain their standards of living or make sense of a society changing rapidly around them have twice given Mr. Trump a chance to make good on his promise to blow up politics as usual and address their concerns.
To his critics, Mr. Trump is narcissistic, uncouth, corrupt and a danger to American democracy. He has used the office to enrich himself and his family, sullied the image of the United States around the world, sought to erase the true history of Black Americans and pursued policies that harm the very people he purports to represent.
What everyone agrees on is that Mr. Trump dominates the political landscape like none of his predecessors going back generations, single-handedly setting the agenda and forcing his will on the rest of the system. At the same time, he is the most consistently unpopular president since the advent of polling. He has never had the support of a majority of Americans, not in any of his three presidential elections and not for a single day of either term in Gallup surveys.
His current 36 percent approval rating in Gallup is lower than that of every elected modern president at the end of their first year, lower even than it was in his first term (39 percent) and seven percentage points below the next-lowest (Joseph R. Biden Jr., at 43 percent). If compared against presidents who served two terms consecutively, Mr. Trump is still below each of them at the end of their fifth year, except Mr. Nixon, who had plummeted to 29 percent in the throes of Watergate.
Some critics predict that Mr. Trump’s unpopularity will begin to erode his power. “It’s been striking that Republicans in Congress have stuck behind him,” said former Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona who broke with Mr. Trump in the first term. “But I do think that is changing. Some of it’s not exactly a profile in courage, but it’s looking at the electoral wins and realizing the midterms are going to be very difficult.”
Mr. Trump’s allies dismiss that as wishful thinking by the president’s critics. Mr. Miller called current polling a “temporary blip” that will reverse as tax cuts passed earlier this year take effect in the first couple of quarters of 2026. “Once the economy rockets to where everyone’s predicting it to be for Q1 and Q2,” he said, “that will all snap back.”
Bypassing Limits
Presidents have been pushing the boundaries of power going back to the early days of the republic, most aggressively during wartime. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus even beyond the battlefield and emancipated enslaved people in rebel areas. Woodrow Wilson prosecuted critics of World War I and effectively censored some newspapers. Franklin D. Roosevelt interned more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry, including American citizens. In most cases, the pendulum swung back to a degree after the wars were over and security restored.
In the modern era, the notion of an imperial presidency was made prominent by the book of that name published in 1973 by the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who had worked in John F. Kennedy’s White House. Mr. Schlesinger argued that under Mr. Nixon, who refused to spend certain money appropriated by Congress, secretly bombed Cambodia, wiretapped opponents and used government to pursue his enemies, the presidency “has got out of control and badly needs new definition and restraint.”
President Richard M. Nixon at a news conference in 1970. The phrase “the imperial presidency” was popularized as a description of his administration. Mike Lien/The New York Times
The system of checks and balances eventually did reassert itself during Watergate. The Supreme Court unanimously ordered Mr. Nixon to release incriminating tapes and a bipartisan coalition in Congress moved to impeach the president, prompting him to resign. Starting late in Mr. Nixon’s tenure, Congress passed new laws meant to restrain the executive on war powers, impoundment, eavesdropping and government ethics.
Some argued that the post-Watergate reforms went too far in emasculating the presidency after the voter-abbreviated tenures of Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter. Mr. Reagan and George W. Bush in different ways worked to empower the office again, particularly in foreign policy and national security. Mr. Obama pushed further by exempting from deportation many immigrants who had arrived illegally as children and Mr. Biden unilaterally tried to forgive $400 billion in student loan debt. But all four encountered pushback from the courts and Congress and none went as far as Mr. Trump has.
“Some of the stuff that people were upset at Nixon for doing was kind of quaint compared to just the totally out-of-control stuff” that Mr. Trump has been doing, said Robert Schlesinger, a son of Arthur Schlesinger and himself a longtime journalist and historian of the White House.
“Even Nixon was a guy who got that there were limits that he had to tread carefully around even as he was trying to push them,” Mr. Schlesinger added. “Whereas Trump, he’s not interested in limits. And whether it’s through a conscious strategy or just unconscious cunning, by being so open about it, it normalizes it to some extent.”
Learning Curve
That may stem from Mr. Trump’s distinctive ability to overcome obstacles and scandals that would hobble any other politician. He was impeached twice, indicted four times, convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual abuse and found liable for business fraud while his firm was convicted of criminal tax evasion. Yet he won a stunning, against-the-odds comeback election victory. The Supreme Court even granted him and his successors broad immunity that it had never bestowed on any previous president.
And so Mr. Trump evidently sees little reason to restrain himself. He has pursued an everything-everywhere-all-at-once strategy of pushing policies, even knowing that some of them may be rejected — a gamble that paid off, from his vantage point. As it turned out, not only has Congress acquiesced to vast intrusions on its traditional spheres of authority, most notably spending, but even the courts have been more of a speed bump than a stop sign.
That owes a lot to the team Mr. Trump has built around him, one that cheers him on rather than holds him back. Mr. Trump got off to “a fast start,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who tracks administration turnover. “They were rolling in the beginning. So, clearly, there’s been a learning curve and a recognition that staff chaos is not helpful to the cause.”
Mr. Trump holding a Cabinet meeting at the White House. The president has surrounded himself with loyalists in his second term. Doug Mills/The New York Times
But as she pointed out, that does not mean there has not been staff turmoil. It’s just that Mr. Trump does not advertise it as much by firing people on social media, as he did the last time around, and Americans have become used to it. Without much notice, Mr. Trump withdrew 52 nominations in his first 10 months in office, four times as many as Mr. Biden did in the same period, according to figures compiled by Chris Piper, a Brookings colleague.
Working off a Project 2025 blueprint devised by allies during his four years out of power, Mr. Trump came back to office with a raft of executive orders that have allowed the instant-gratification president to dispense with the slow grind of congressional negotiations. So far this year, Mr. Trump has issued about 225 executive orders .. https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/donald-trump/2025 , nearly three times as many as any other first-year president in three-quarters of a century.
Mr. Miller credits a more cohesive team. “There are a lot less hangers-on or superfluous characters floating around,” he said. “That White House is about getting things done.”
But some Republicans said the lack of contrary voices in the West Wing has a cost. While Mr. Trump has successfully sealed the border as he promised and brokered a fragile cease-fire in Gaza, he looks out of touch on affordability and was rolled by the bipartisan coalition demanding the release of files related to the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
“You live in a bubble if that’s the situation and sometimes you get blindsided by reality,” said Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the few incumbent Republicans who has been critical at times. “I don’t know that he’s hearing that kind of feedback. His first administration he had people who would say, ‘Mr. President, I know what you’re saying, this is what I’m thinking.’” By contrast, Mr. Bacon said, “this time, you’ve got pretty much yes men.”
Imperial or Imperiled?
The lack of checks on Mr. Trump has given him latitude that his predecessors did not enjoy, not just in policymaking but also in profit-making. While other presidential families have cashed in on the White House, none has been as successful or brazen as Mr. Trump and his clan. In the 11 months since he reclaimed the White House, the president’s family has made billions of dollars, at least on paper, through business deals around the world and cryptocurrency investments from people with a vested interest in American policy.
At the same time, Mr. Trump has systematically dismantled many instruments of accountability. He installed loyal partisans at the F.B.I. and Justice Department, fired inspectors general and the special counsel, purged prosecutors and agents who participated in past investigations into his dealings and gutted the public integrity section that probes political corruption. Congressional Republicans who eagerly looked into Hunter Biden’s business ties have no interest in scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s.
The question is how much of this change will be sustained. Is the presidency rewired for the long run or will it cycle back down the road?
In his first year back in office, Mr. Trump has unabashedly adopted the trappings of royalty just as he has asserted power to transform American government and society to his liking. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
As the year ends, there have been signs of resistance to unchecked power. A judge threw out the Trump administration’s indictments against two of the president’s adversaries, Letitia James and James B. Comey, and two grand juries refused to re-indict Ms. James. In addition to legislating release of the Epstein files, Congress passed a measure slashing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget by 25 percent if he does not turn over video of a second strike on a boat of supposed drug traffickers.
If Democrats win the midterm elections next year, they will surely use their newfound power to push back further against Mr. Trump. Some, like Mr. Flake, predict that even some Republicans will begin to speak out after filing deadlines for possible primary challengers have passed. And legal analysts expect the Supreme Court to clip Mr. Trump’s wings on tariffs, and possibly on birthright citizenship.
Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, acknowledged the nation’s long history of expanding presidential authority. But, he added, “we have an equally robust history of cramming the presidency back into its constitutional box once war or economic crisis has passed.”
That history “strongly suggests that what we are seeing today will not, in fact, endure.” Is that a guarantee? “I’m not smart enough to know the answer to that.”
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He is covering his sixth presidency and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework.
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