In Fox News Op-Ed, Mahmoud Khalil Urges Americans To Defend The First Amendment | EUROtoday

About a 12 months after federal immigration brokers first kidnapped Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil and detained him with out cost, the pro-Palestinian activist is now urging Americans throughout the political spectrum to defend the First Amendment in opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts to quash it.

Khalil wrote an opinion piece on Wednesday for Fox News, detailing how he, as a inexperienced card holder, was taken from his then-pregnant spouse in March 2025 due to his function organizing nonviolent campus protests for Palestine — in different phrases, exercising his First Amendment rights.

“Throughout my 104 days in federal detention, during which I missed the birth of my first child, I considered myself a political prisoner,” he wrote. “The government had deprived me of my liberty, not because I had broken any laws, but because it didn’t like what I had to say.”

Khalil was ultimately launched and has beforehand described the inhumane situations he and different immigrants needed to endure whereas detained. But the Trump administration nonetheless continues to struggle Khalil in courtroom to get him — and different pro-Palestinian activists like Leqaa Kordia — deported.

“The Supreme Court recognized eighty years ago that the First Amendment protects all of us in the United States — citizens and noncitizens alike — from government persecution for our beliefs,” he wrote.

“If we allow that boundary to be violated for noncitizens, or when the government claims a foreign policy concern, a precedent is created that can be used against all of us,” he continued. “Even citizens. Even people who disagree with me vehemently about Palestine.”

Khalil has the help of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdaniwho on Sunday hosted the activist and his spouse, Noor, for iftar (the meal that breaks one’s quick throughout Ramadan). Khalil mentioned that Mamdani was the primary elected official to name for his freedomand the mayor has since requested the president to drop the case in opposition to him.

“Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and belongs in New York City,” Mamdani wrote Monday on X. When requested concerning the optics of iftar with Khalil, the mayor mentioned Thursday that it’s essential “every New Yorker know that I will stand up for their right to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

Khalil isn’t any stranger to leveraging worldwide media to spotlight how his expertise in detention foreshadows a bigger systemic downside within the nation — whether or not or not it’s authorities corruption, the dehumanizing of immigrants, the U.S. detention system or, on this case, the First Amendment.

But the shocking resolution to put in writing for a large right-wing outlet like Fox News seems to indicate that Khalil is attempting to achieve an viewers past his supporters, with a warning to Americans that their rights might simply be the administration’s subsequent goal, no matter the place they stand.

“Our basic rights don’t have a party affiliation, and my case should concern every American,” Khalil instructed HuffPost on Thursday. “This message needs to reach everyone, not just the people who already agree with me. I will continue to use my voice whenever and wherever I can to stand up for our rights, for justice and for Palestine.”