In a letter marking one month since his detention by immigration authorities, Noor Abdalla vowed to continue to fight for the release of her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, and for the right to speak up on behalf of Palestinian rights.
“We will not be silenced,” she said. “We will persist, with even greater resolve, and we will pass that strength on to our children and our children’s children – until Palestine is free.”
Khalil, the recent Columbia graduate and Palestinian activist, was detained on 8 March and remains in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention in Louisiana. The Trump administration is seeking to deport him.
“Exactly a month ago, you were taken from me,” Abdalla, who is nine months pregnant with their first child, wrote in the letter addressed to her husband and published exclusively in the Guardian. “As the days draw us closer to the arrival of our child, I am haunted by the uncertainty that looms over me – the possibility that you might not be there for this monumental moment.”
Khalil helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last spring. His arrest was the first in what has become a mounting series of actions by the Trump administration to deport international students – some over their pro-Palestinian activism, others for reasons unclear to them.
Abdalla, a 28-year-old dentist residing in New York, is a US citizen who was born and raised in Michigan. Her parents immigrated to the US from Syria about 40 years ago. She was with him the evening of his arrest last month as they were returning from breaking their Ramadan fast with friends, and recorded the arrest.
“Every kick, every cramp, every small flutter I feel inside me serves as an inescapable reminder of the family we’ve dreamed of building together,” Abdalla’s letter said. “Yet, I am left to navigate this profound journey alone, while you endure the cruel and unjust confines of a detention center.”
Khalil has not been charged with any crimes and his lawyers contend that the Trump administration is unlawfully retaliating against him for his activism and constitutionally protected speech.
The administration has accused the recent graduate of leading “activities aligned to Hamas” and is seeking to deport him under a rarely invoked legal provision that allows the state department to deport non-citizens deemed to be a threat to US foreign policy.
Khalil and his lawyers are currently challenging the administration’s deportation effort in court. An immigration hearing in the case is set to take place on Tuesday afternoon.
In the letter, Abdalla said that she “could not be more proud” of Khalil, adding that he embodied everything she ever hoped for in a partner and for the father of her children.
“What more could I ask for as a role model for our children than a man who, with unwavering conviction, stands up for the liberation of his people, fully cognizant of the consequences of speaking truth to power?” she asks. “Your courage is boundless, and now more than ever, I am in awe of your strength and determination. Your voice, your belief in justice, and your refusal to be silenced are the very qualities that make you the man I love and admire.”
The letter slams the administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech in the name of fighting antisemitism, a campaign that has threatened billions of dollars in funding to American universities in addition to the immigration status of students who have not been accused of committing any crimes. It also critiques Columbia’s administrators, who Abdalla said failed to protect Khalil.
“They sit in their ivory towers, scrambling to fabricate lies and distort the truth, throwing accusations like stones in the hope that something will stick,” she said.
“What they fail to realize is that their efforts are futile. Their wrongful detention of you is a testament to the fact that you have struck a nerve,” she said. “You’ve disrupted the false narratives they’ve worked so hard to maintain, and spoken a truth that they are too terrified to acknowledge.”
In the letter, Abdalla said she eagerly awaited the day when she can tell their son the “stories of his father’s bravery, of the courage that courses through his veins, and of the pride he should feel to carry Palestinian blood … your blood”.
“And, more than anything, I pray that he will not have to grow up fighting the same fight for our basic freedoms,” she said.
“We will be reunited soon,” she said, but “until then, I will continue to fight for you, for us and for our family”.
“I know your spirit is unwavering, that they cannot break you, and that you will emerge from this stronger than ever,” she adds. “I have no doubt that, when you are finally released, you will raise your hands in the air, chanting: ‘Free Palestine.’”
