3월 8일 미국 국토안보부 소속 이민세관단속국(ICE)이 컬럼비아대학교 대학원생이자 팔레스타인인 활동가 마흐무드 칼릴을 체포했습니다. 마흐무드 칼릴은 지난해 컬럼비아대학교 팔레스타인 연대 캠퍼스 점거 운동을 이끌었습니다. 그는 디아스포라 3세로 시리아의 팔레스타인 난민 캠프에서 태어났습니다.
마흐무드 칼릴은 현재 루이지애나 ICE 시설에 구금돼 있습니다. 3월 18일, 그의 편지가 공개되었습니다. 구금 시설의 수화기 너머의 그의 말을 변호사들이 받아 쓴 것입니다. 그 일부를 소개합니다. 편지의 전문(영어)은 이 곳에서도 보실 수 있습니다.
“저는 정치수 마흐무드 칼릴입니다.
“저는 제가 가진 표현의 자유를 이용해 팔레스타인 해방과 지난 월요일 밤 전면적으로 재개된 가자 인종 학살 중단을 요구했다는 이유로 체포됐습니다. 1월에 시작된 휴전이 깨진 지금 가자의 부모들은 다시 한 번 너무나 작은 수의를 품에 안고 가족들은 폭격을 피해 기아와 피란길로 내몰릴 처지가 됐습니다. 우리는 이들의 완전한 해방을 위한 투쟁을 이어가야 할 도덕적 의무가 있습니다.
“팔레스타인인으로 산다는 것은 국경을 초월하는 경험입니다. 이스라엘은 저와 비슷한 처지의 팔레스타인인들의 권리를 박탈하고 그들을 어떤 재판이나 혐의 없이 구금하고 있습니다.
“저의 부당한 구금은 지난 16개월 동안 바이든과 트럼프의 미국 정부가 이스라엘에 팔레스타인인들을 살해할 무기를 공급하고 국제 사회의 개입을 가로막은 데서 드러난 팔레스타인인들을 향한 인종차별을 보여 주는 것입니다.
“오히려, 제 구금은 팔레스타인 해방으로 여론을 움직일 수 있는 학생 운동의 힘을 보여주는 것입니다.
“트럼프 정부는 불만을 억압하기 위해 더 폭넓은 정책의 일부로서 저를 겨냥한 것입니다. 비자 소지자, 영주권자를 비롯한 다른 시민들도 이제 정치적 신념을 이유로 탄압받을 수 있게 된 것입니다.
“제가 겪고 있는 일이 비단 저 개인이 아니라 팔레스타인 연대 운동을 향해서 벌어지는 일임을 압니다. 저는 부당한 구금에서 풀려나 곧 태어날 제 첫 아이가 탄생하는 순간에 함께하게 되기를 바랍니다.”
(아래는 영어 전문)
Letter from Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian political prisoner in Louisiana
※ dictated by Mahmoud Khalil to his lawyers over the phone from an ICE detention center
March 18, 2025
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law. Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
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, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
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. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.
Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.
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.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
