NEW YORK — The wife of detained Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil accused federal immigration officials of purposely denying a request for her husband to attend the birth of their first child in order to make the family suffer.
Noor Abdalla said in a statement that she had to give birth to a baby boy on Monday without her husband by her side. She said ICE had declined a request to grant Khalil temporary release from a detention center in Louisiana so he could travel to New York for the birth of the baby.
“This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer,” Abdalla said in the statement, adding how her husband is being “unjustly” detained.
“ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom,” she added.
A message seeking comment was left with ICE officials.
Khalil is a legal permanent U.S. resident and graduate student who served as spokesperson for campus activists last year during large demonstrations at Columbia against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the war in Gaza.
The federal government contends Khalil is a national security risk. An immigration judge in Louisiana ruled earlier this month that the government’s assertion that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” satisfied requirements for deportation.
A lawyer for Khalil said the ruling will be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals.