LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Mahmoud Khalil thought that he had found a safe place to call home when he became a permanent resident of the United States. He graduated from Columbia University. He got a job. His wife was pregnant. Then in March of 2025, he was detained by plain-clothes, masked immigration agents and clandestinely whisked from New York City to rural Louisiana.
MAHMOUD KHALIL: A lot of people look at my case as a pure immigration case or a pure First Amendment case. In reality, it is a combination of Palestine, First Amendment and immigration. They weaponized immigration law to stifle my speech because I spoke about Palestine.
FADEL: He became a national story, the government trying to paint him as a danger while providing no proof. Khalil, his lawyers and human rights groups all argue this is about silencing. He's telling his own story in his book, "No Land To Stand On: Notes From Detention." I sat down with him to talk about it in our New York bureau.
Mahmoud Khalil, welcome back to MORNING EDITION.
KHALIL: Thank you so much for having me here.
FADEL: So I wanted to start with, you write about your story within the story, you say, of generations of displacement and detention. You see your detention as part of that continuing story?
KHALIL: Absolutely, my grandfather was exiled from Palestine, from Tiberias to Syria about 15 years ago. My parents also fled Syria to Europe. I fled to Lebanon and later to the United States. Although I am considered now in one of the safest places on Earth, still like...
FADEL: Here in the United States?
KHALIL: Here in the United States. But still, like, violence found a way to displace me, state violence here. And it's a story about, like, you know, how borders change also.
FADEL: You call your detention and this case against you state violence. You see it that way?
KHALIL: Absolutely. I never imagined that this anti-Palestinian bigotry would be institutionalized, that the federal government would actually go and depend or collaborate with these private actors to go after noncitizen protesters. So I really felt very betrayed.
FADEL: You spend a lot of time writing about your own case, yes, but also about the detainees around you. Why did you focus on these other men that were going through completely different stories than yours?
KHALIL: Because what's happening behind ICE detention doors is a stain on the U.S. Constitution, a stain on the U.S. consciousness. It was so normal to see men cry in detention because they were just like, what did we do to warrant the administration call us criminals? At first, when I got into detention, I felt that my story is the saddest story. You know, I never committed a crime. I had a green card. My wife is American. I'm expecting a baby in a month.
But a day in, I discovered that I'm actually privileged. I have lawyers. My wife is safe. But for the many of the people around me, were faceless. Like, they did not have anyone paying attention to their stories. And I felt as if I was sent there for a reason, to bring attention to what they are going through.
FADEL: Is that in part why you wrote the book?
KHALIL: Absolutely. I feel that we must act now because this is still happening right now.
FADEL: You write about feeling flattened in this case, that you became a headline, and that hurt you. Walk me through the gap between what you think the world knows about you and who you are, like, being flattened in that way.
KHALIL: During detention, I could see the headlines about me. I can see protests holding my pictures. While in reality, you know, I was just trying to get out, to be with my wife or to call Noor and be - you know, just like to get what would happen with the baby? Would I be out for the baby? But also, I was looking for mayonnaise, like, to put on my sandwich in detention. I was looking for a better bunk bed. And that...
FADEL: Right, because you write about being close to the bathroom when you first get there...
KHALIL: Exactly.
FADEL: ...And being excited when you get near the wall.
KHALIL: Absolutely. There was these two realities. The juxtaposition between these things was stark to me. Palestinians, at the end of the day, you know, we have the same aspirations as anyone else. We have the same also, you know, deficiencies. And that's one thing that flattens, that you're either perfect or not.
FADEL: Another part of your book that was interesting was the way detainees, you all comforted each other and helped each other. You write about the way they tried to celebrate for you after your son, Deen, was born. Tell me that story.
KHALIL: I tried not to tell anybody that my wife, Noor, was delivering. But my bunkmate and others, like, noticed that I would be, you know, going back and forth to the phone booth. And, you know, next day, out of the blue, I see, like, a Russian detainee bringing me cake, or prison-made cake, which is, you know, mashed up from, like, whatever leftover from these cookies that we get, with some of the dried oranges as well. And that was, like, worth of at least two weeks of leftovers, you know? It was like one of, yeah, the beautiful moments in detention where we really cared about each other, because there you feel that you're forgotten.
FADEL: The title of your book, "No Land To Stand On." You chose those words. Why?
KHALIL: You know, I was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. When I came here, it was the first time I had something permanent, permanent residency. And I felt, you know, like I got it. And then, you know, all this happened to me. It made me realize that I actually don't have a land to stand on. But also, it comes from, you know, a conversation I had with my mother.
She told me, like, for what? I did everything in Syria to build you, like, a big house. Like, we had - she literally, like, paid 30 years of work into that. And then she had to flee that, like, in a day. And she literally felt, like, that defeated that she told me, like, do I want to build a life here to only then have to leave everything and go to another place? Sort of she lost, like, that purpose. And that really got into me, around the impermanence of just, like, our lives.
FADEL: Mahmoud Khalil is the author of "No Land To Stand On: Notes From Detention." Thank you for speaking with us.
KHALIL: Thank you so much, Leila, for having me.
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