US blocks detained pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil from holding new-born son

Officials from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have denied detained pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil a visit with his wife and month-old son, his lawyers say.

On Wednesday, ICE officials and GEO Group, a private prison contractor, refused to allow a contact between Khalil, a former Columbia University student and a prominent anti-Israel protest organizer, and his family, including holding his newborn son, despite repeated requests from his legal team, according to his lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

"After flying over a thousand miles to Louisiana with our newborn son, his very first flight, all so his father could finally hold him in his arms, ICE has denied us even this most basic human right. This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse,” said his wife, Noor Abdalla, in a news release from the ACLU.

She stressed that she was “furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just.”

Khalil, who was arrested on March 8 at his New York apartment and is being detained in Louisiana, is a legal permanent US resident and previously served as a lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, CUAD.

According to his legal team and the ACLU, the refusal to allow Khalil a contact visit with his family was based on “a blanket no-contact visitation policy at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (CLIPC) and unspecified 'security concerns' relating to the presence of a mother and newborn baby in an unsecure part of the facility.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump has accused Khalil of supporting the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement and committing immigration fraud, His lawyers have already contested such allegations as unfounded and politically motivated.

Zionist inspired and directed: Columbia graduate detained without evidence of wrongdoing

A a recent graduate of Columbia University was taken into custody by ICE last week, without providing any evidence, associated him with pro-Palestine activity.

In a letter to his newly-born son on May 11, Khalil said, “My absence is not unique. Like other Palestinian fathers, I was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons. In Palestine, this pain is part of daily life … The grief your mother and I feel is but one drop in a sea of sorrow that Palestinian families have drowned in for generations.”

Khalil, a Palestinian born in a Syrian refugee camp, was represented on Sunday by his wife at an alternative graduation ceremony in New York, where she accepted his diploma while holding their baby son.

His detention has sparked protests and alarm among free speech advocates, who argue that he is being unlawfully targeted for his activism, with his lawyers contending that the Donald Trump administration is using rarely invoked legal provisions to deport him, although he is not being charged with a crime. 

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk