AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to look at the Trump administration’s targeting of foreign-born students who have expressed support for Palestinians. Columbia student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil has been jailed in ICE detention for two weeks, even though he’s a legal permanent resident of the United States. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman cleared the way for Khalil to stay in the U.S. and keep challenging his arrest. The judge transferred Mahmoud Khalil’s case to New Jersey, where he was initially held before being transferred to Louisiana.

Earlier this week, Mahmoud Khalil dictated a letter to his lawyers. He said, in part, quote, “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all,” he said.

We’re joined right now by Shezza Abboushi Dallal, a staff attorney with the CLEAR project at CUNY School of Law, member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal defense team.

Thanks so much for being with us. We’ve been following this very closely, and there’s been mass protests across the country. Thousands have turned out protesting for Khalil. His wife, an American citizen, left here in New York, she is eight months pregnant. Explain the latest. Explain Judge Furman’s decision and what it means for Khalil to be going to New Jersey, if he in fact is. He’s still in Louisiana.

SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: That’s exactly right. Thank you for having me, Amy.

So, on Wednesday, Judge Furman in the Southern District of New York ordered the case transferred to a federal court in New Jersey. And in doing so, Judge Furman acknowledged that the right court to hear this is here, in the area where all of these events played out, where Mahmoud’s family is, his eight-month-pregnant wife is, his community is and his lawyers are, and rejected the government’s argument that the right court to hear this is in Louisiana, where they covertly transferred him over the course of hours of his nighttime detention two weekends ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Which makes it very difficult for you to speak with him, right? You wanted — the defense team demanded that they be able to speak, not monitored, because, in fact, that’s what happens at ICE detention facilities.

SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: That’s right. So, what you’re referring to is that during our first court appearance in the Southern District of New York, we sought and received a court order allowing us to have legal calls with our client. Regular calls in ICE detention facilities are subject to monitoring by the government, and therefore use against people who are being detained. And so, we had not been able at that point to have those types of legal calls. Thanks to that court order, we have been able to since.

And we are ready to continue this legal battle in New Jersey, where a number of really important legal battles will be hashed out in the days and weeks to come.

AMY GOODMAN: And why New Jersey? Even though he was first transferred, what, to Elizabeth, but Judge Furman — 

SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: — while he said he should be brought up from Louisiana, said New Jersey, not New York. And why is that significant to you?

SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: He said New Jersey because at the exact time when — and this was in the early hours of the morning, hours from Mahmoud’s detention — at the exact time when the habeas petition challenging his unlawful detention was filed, he was in an ICE detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And so, the court ordered transfer to New Jersey because of that fact and, again, acknowledging that, contrary to the incredible claims that the government is making that Louisiana is the right court to hear this, to have him battle out the challenge to his unlawful detention in Louisiana would mean to have him fight his case in a state that is 1,400 miles away from his eight-months-pregnant wife who’s due next month, from us, his counsel, and from the place where all of this played out.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to the video showing the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil on March 8th, when he was detained by plainclothes officers who did not identify themselves. The video was filmed by his eight-month-pregnant wife Dr. Noor Abdalla, whose voice you’re hearing in this clip.

DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: You’re going to be under arrest, so turn around.

MAHMOUD KHALIL: I know. I can’t see — 

DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: Turn around. Turn around. Turn around. Turn around.

DR. NOOR ABDALLA: OK, OK. Let’s not —

DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: Stop resisting. Stop resisting.

DR. NOOR ABDALLA: OK, OK, he’s not resisting. He’s giving me his phone.

DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: All right. All right.

DR. NOOR ABDALLA: OK? He’s not — I understand. He’s not resisting.

DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: Turn around. Put your arms around —

DR. NOOR ABDALLA: Like — 

MAHMOUD KHALIL: There’s no need for this. You already have me.

DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: Don’t worry about it. You’re going to have to come with us. Don’t worry about it.

DR. NOOR ABDALLA: Can you — can you please specify what agency is taking him, please? Excuse me. They’re — nobody — they’re not talking to me. I don’t know. Excuse me, the lawyer would like to speak to somebody. Oh my god, they’re literally running away from me.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there we have the video that the ACLU released. Mahmoud could not know who these people were. They were in plainclothes. The car was plainclothes. It was in their lobby. And what about this news of Elvin Hernandez, a DHS officer, who Trump had honored in his first term in the presidency, I think pointed him out at the State of Union address? He was one of those who arrested him?

SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: Yeah. So, you can see in the video how alarming and distressing the whole ordeal was. You have multiple Department of Homeland Security agents in plainclothes closing in on Mahmoud and his wife in the lobby of their Columbia faculty — Columbia housing.

AMY GOODMAN: They had just come back from iftar?

SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: Yeah, that’s exactly right. They were entering their building, coming back from iftar. This is Columbia University housing. And they’re followed in and closed in on by a bunch of agents in plainclothes. And they’re having trouble receiving any information at all from these men about who they are. They’re pleading for information about who they are, where they’re being taken, and receiving next to nothing, as you can see.

AMY GOODMAN: Did Columbia give them permission — ICE, DHS, permission to go in their housing? I mean, Mahmoud had appealed to the Columbia president in the days before, saying he faced danger.

SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: We don’t know what Columbia has done, but what we know is what we see, which is that these officers are inside of the building — again, Columbia housing. And we also know from Mahmoud and his wife that they pleaded for assistance from the Columbia University administration in the days leading up to this detention and arrest, and they received no support. They have yet to receive any sort of support or outreach from the university.

And we know that Columbia University has had a track record over the course of the past, you know, more than a year and a half of collaborating with law enforcement agencies, giving them information, inviting them onto campus to arrest their own students. Certainly, they’ve taken the posture of collaborators and not a protective posture of their students, their staff, their faculty against this administration and the last’s agendas to target advocates for Palestinian rights and liberation.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to read more from Mahmoud Khalil’s letter from jail. He wrote, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza … While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. … Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”

Shezza Abboushi Dallal, thank you so much for giving us this update, staff attorney with the CLEAR project at CUNY School of Law, member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal defense team.