At a press briefing, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) decried the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you all so much for being here.
00:03I know that Mahmoud Khalil right now is a political prisoner.
00:07We are demanding his release, of course, today.
00:10Mahmoud was kidnapped from his home by government agents and illegally disappeared to a detention
00:15facility in Louisiana.
00:18We know that that's thousands of miles away from his wife.
00:21They're expecting their first child.
00:22But as his wife, Noor, would say, she's more than just an eight-month pregnant woman.
00:27She's also just a human being that watched, again, her love, her husband, being ripped
00:32away from her in front of her with no—if you saw the video, it was horrifying to watch.
00:37It felt so incredibly helpless.
00:38You know, there was no due process, no criminal charges, no demonstration of a warrant, no
00:43information on where he was being held for days.
00:46Let's be clear.
00:47Mahmoud's rights are our rights.
00:50And the United States of America, no matter your immigration status, no matter, again,
00:55who you are, you have constitutional rights in our country.
00:59The detention and threatened deportation of Mahmoud is illegal and is a direct assault
01:03on our constitutional rights to due process, freedom of speech, a right to protest, and
01:09on dissent itself.
01:11Dissent is a fundamental American value.
01:15This is a moment that should alarm all of us.
01:17If we do not stand up and fight for Mahmoud's freedom today, the unlawless Trump administration
01:24will come for us all.
01:26All of our rights are under attack at this moment.
01:30Mahmoud knows that the Israeli government imprisons Palestinians without charge or trial
01:34every single day, just like what our government just did to Mahmoud.
01:39As Mahmoud himself said in his powerful letter from ICE detention, he was targeted for exercising
01:45his right to freedom of speech, to advocate for a free Palestine, and in Israel's occupation
01:53and apartheid and genocide in Gaza.
01:56The Trump administration proudly admits that this has, admits this clearly, and threatened
02:03to do more arrests.
02:05We are already seeing other students, and Congresswoman Ramirez talked about that, scholars
02:09are being targeted.
02:10You know, I heard another day, another professor, another professor, another student, and it's
02:16unfortunate some of these universities are helping the Trump administration.
02:21You know, including right here, we saw a person, again, being targeted and detained
02:29here in D.C. at Georgetown.
02:32These attacks are an attempt to silence the growing movement for human rights for Palestinians.
02:37They want us to be silent as the Israeli government continues its genocide, wiping out entire
02:41generations of Palestinian families, dropping American bombs on hospitals, and dismembering
02:47children over and over again.
02:51They want us to be silent as Trump sends Netanyahu another $12.5 billion in new weapons
02:56to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.
03:00I know Mahmoud has called students, on students and advocates and elected officials like us
03:05to unite and defend the right to protest for Palestine, and that's exactly what we're here
03:10to do.
03:11You don't have to agree everything that Mahmoud is saying, but you have to agree that the
03:16one thing that we understand is the freedom of speech and our constitutional rights, and
03:21we're here to say that we will not be silent.
03:23Free Mahmoud Khalil, and as the only Palestinian-American serving in this Congress, I must always say,
03:29free Palestine.
03:30With that, I'm going to have my amazing colleague, Congresswoman Parmilla Jayapal, and let me
03:37tell you, she's been an incredible mentor in this fight.
03:42You know, she knows it's not just about freedom of speech when it comes to the issue of Palestine.
03:46We know it's also about immigrant rights.
03:48It's also about us fighting against the corporate greed that has infiltrated our government already,
03:53with billionaires making decisions about Medicaid and Social Security.
03:57And so I'm just really pleased and so incredibly grateful that she's on the Judiciary Committee.
04:02Her leadership is needed at this moment.
04:04With that, Parmilla.