Mahmoud Khalil feared the U.S. would immediately deport him after his arrest, new court filings show
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and prominent protest organizer, feared the government would immediately deport him the night he was arrested, a new court filing shows.
He was taken from his university-owned apartment to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan on March 8. Authorities collected a DNA swap, his biometrics and fingerprints as well as his belt, shoes, and wedding ring, Khalil described in a March 17 sworn declaration.
“I was given different shoes without laces to wear,” he said.
Hours later, he was asked to sign a “notice to appear” form, prompting him to ask for his lawyer before signing. He was told he could call his attorney if he signed the forms. He refused and was moved to a different room.
Later, agents returned with copies of the “notice to appear” form, which “appeared to be different from the one I was originally asked to sign,” as it included an immigration court date several weeks into the future and a location in “LA,” meaning Louisiana, he wrote in the filing.
By the early hours of March 9, he was taken by white van — without his belongings except for his clothes — to Elizabeth, New Jersey. When he arrived, he once again asked to speak to his attorney, but told he needed to be processed first.
He and 10 others in a “cold” waiting room slept on the ground, without beds, mattresses, or blankets, he wrote. After watching those before him in line be processed, Khalil was called to the front, but was then taken back to the waiting room.
“They don’t need you in that room,” one officer told him. “You’re being transported.”
After waiting an hour back in the waiting room, he was told: “You’re being transported in 10 minutes.” At around noon, two agents escorted him to another white van. When he asked if he was returning to the initial detention center in Manhattan, agents informed him: “No, we are going to JFK Airport.”
“I was afraid they were trying to deport me,” Khalil wrote in the declaration.
The acting field office director at ICE’s New York field office explained in a previous filing that Khalil was transferred from the Elizabeth facility because it “was experiencing and continues to experience a bedbug issue that prevented them from accepting detainees as full transfers.” However, in his declaration, Khalil said he heard no mention of bedbugs during his hours-long detention there. Khalil’s attorney also noted that four individuals were processed for detention at the facility from March 6 through March 13.
In the van, he spotted two bags holding his belongings that had been taken from him in Manhattan.
At the airport, two plainclothes agents met him. During the 10 hours he spent in their custody, one of the agents told Khalil that “no one wanted to take” the job of escorting him “because it was a Sunday.”
At the Louisiana Detention Facility, agents processed him, took his photo, and fingerprinted him. Authorities handed him a bag with a uniform, requested he change into it, and asked him to return his belongings over.
“Because I am currently in detention at the Louisiana Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, I could not meet with my attorneys in person or sign this declaration myself,” he said in the declaration.
His attorneys are asking the court to allow him to return to New York from Louisiana, where he’s being held until his appearance before an immigration judge. Government lawyers argue that Louisiana is the proper venue for the case, since he’s currently being held there.
