What Mahmoud Khalil's arrest means for ... everyone

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident and Columbia alum, was detained by ICE for his role in leading pro-Palestinian protests at his former university last year. As Khalil's case has captured the nation's attention, free speech advocates see it as a test of the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the Trump administration argues they have the right to deport Khalil without charging him with a crime. On this episode, why Khalil's arrest should worry all of us.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's good? You're listening to Code Switch from NPR. I'm Gene Demby.
0:05.2	And I'm B.A. Parker.
0:07.4	Parker, I want to take you back to a moment in one of Trump's State of the Union speeches from his first term.
0:12.5	Okay. In the last two years, our brave ICE officers made 266,000 arrests.
0:23.4	And then Trump does that thing that presidents do in these speeches, you know, where
0:28.0	they like shout out regular Americans in the audience to make a point about how their
0:32.6	policies are good, actually.
0:34.5	We are joined tonight by one of those law enforcement heroes, ICE Special Agent Elvin
0:41.9	Hernandez.
0:43.8	Trump goes on to make the point that Elvin and his family legally immigrated to the U.S.
0:47.9	from the Dominican Republic, and then he talks about the importance of what he calls
0:51.3	legal immigrants in the United States.
0:54.6	Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways.
1:05.8	Fast forward to earlier this month, Parker, and near the Columbia University campus, and this
1:10.2	is according to a court filing, an ICE agent that identified himself as Elvin Hernandez is one of the agents
1:17.1	there to arrest a recent Columbia graduate named Mahmoo Khalil.
1:21.3	Mahmoud and his very pregnant wife are coming home from an Iftar dinner.
1:25.5	Yeah, because it's Ramadan.
1:26.5	Yeah, because it's Ramadan. Yeah, because it's Ramadan.
1:31.5	And as they got to their apartment, the agents are there, and Mahmoud Khalil is handcuffed.
1:33.8	His wife actually recorded that moment on her phone.
1:35.7	You're going to be under arrest.
	...

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