Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team on Monday released new footage of the minutes leading up to his March arrest that they say contradicts the government’s argument that he was a flight risk, which officials had said justified his detainment without an arrest warrant.
The Columbia activist who helped organize pro-Palestinian rallies on campus a year ago has been held in a detention center in Louisiana for two months. The Syrian-born green card holder has been fighting his detention and deportation since his arrest, which was the first under the White House administration’s promised campaign against students who protested the war in Gaza.
The five-minute security footage was obtained by Khalil’s legal team through a subpoena, which Columbia University complied with. The video has no sound, and the faces of the ICE agents are blurred. The clip was pulled from five hours of footage that Columbia University turned over to Khalil’s legal team.
The video begins in the lobby of Khalil’s New York City apartment building with him speaking to his attorney on the phone and interacting with the four ICE officers while Khalil’s wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, walks toward a hallway. Abdalla, according to Khalil’s legal team, went to get Khalil’s green card from their apartment.
Khalil can also been seen interacting with the ICE agents and handing them his phone on two occasions to speak with his attorney, his legal team said. Khalil appears calm and cooperative, and at one point he appears to laugh with the agents.
At the end of the video, Abdalla returns to the lobby and gives Khalil his green card, which he turns over to the agents. The video ends after Khalil hands his green card to them.
In April, the government said in court documents that ICE agents allowed Abdalla to get Khalil’s “conditional residence card which was located in their apartment, in lieu of arresting him” while Khalil and the agents “remained in the foyer.”
The government stated in its court filing that the agents asked Khalil “to cooperate while they attempted to verify his identify, but the respondent stated that he would not cooperate and that he was going to leave the scene.”
“The HSI supervisory agent believed there was a flight risk and arrest was necessary,” the filing stated.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department did not immediately respond Monday night to requests for comment about the newly released security video.
NBC News previously reported video footage of the moment of his arrest, which showed Khalil cooperating and telling officers, “Yes, I’m coming with you.” That video was taken by Khalil’s wife.
Kahlil’s legal team said the latest video provides strength to their fight.
“The world now knows ICE unconstitutionally arrested Mahmoud in retaliation for his defense of Palestinian rights and lives,” Ramzi Kassem — co-director of Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR), a legal aid group at the City University of New York’s law school — said Monday. “After the government finally admitted that agents did not even have an administrative warrant for Mahmoud’s arrest, this video is the nail in the coffin of ICE’s lies: it shows, plain as day, that Mahmoud was calm and collected and that he never tried to run.”
Khalil has not been accused of criminal conduct, but the Trump administration has argued he should be expelled from the country for his beliefs.
The administration has maintained that it has the authority to deport Khalil because he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
NBC News reviewed more than 100 pages of documents submitted by the federal government in its effort to deport Khalil, which showed that the government appeared to rely on unverified tabloid articles about him.
Last month, an immigration judge in Louisiana affirmed the federal government’s argument that Khalil’s beliefs threaten national security and justify his deportation.
Days later, New Jersey District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that Kahlil could continue his fight for freedom in federal court.
His legal team has said it will “continue working tirelessly until Mahmoud is free.”
