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00:00We're in court today because the United States government, after arresting
00:29our client Mahmoud Khalil, spirited him overnight to Louisiana in order to avoid
00:40the jurisdiction of the courts in New York and New Jersey. We were here to
00:46insist that the court take jurisdiction of this case, bring him back to New
00:51Jersey, and then immediately thereafter rule on his request for release, request
00:58for bail, and rule on his broader petition that his detention is
01:04unconstitutional because, as we said in court, this is not any routine immigration
01:11case or habeas transfer case. This is a case where the United States government
01:15has created a policy targeting Palestinian activists and specifically
01:22Mahmoud Khalil for arrest, detention, and potential removal because the United
01:27States government disagrees with his constitutionally protected right to
01:32dissent from U.S. foreign policy. So what they've done in court today is
01:40dangerous. What they're ultimately trying to do to so many student activists is
01:46chilling. The most important thing to keep in mind about what's going on Mr.
02:10Khalil is that he is not alone. There are people behind you who are here for him
02:14who are still standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people in defense
02:18of their human rights and in solidarity with the many others at this point who
02:22like Mr. Khalil are either in ICE custody because of their
02:26constitutionally protected speech or are at risk of ICE detention and deportation
02:30because of their speech and their viewpoints which the government happens
02:33to disagree with. So the most important thing to take away from today is that no
02:37matter what happens in court, what's most important is for all of us to keep up
02:42the pressure to let this government know that it cannot suppress speech, any
02:46form of speech including pro-Palestinian speech, and that what happens outside of
02:51court is oftentimes much more important than whatever takes place in court. The
02:56judge of course is going to make his ruling. We've done all we can on
02:59that front and we await that ruling. The part that we can control is
03:04keeping the pressure up because of course the government is banking on
03:06these people behind you who are protesting, who are rallying for Mahmoud
03:10and the others to dissipate. They're banking on media attention dissipating
03:14so that they can get away with doing what they are doing to Mahmoud and the
03:18others and so it's very important for all of us to keep up our efforts and to
03:22keep up our work until Mahmoud is home.
03:40As we await the court's ruling, what I am reminded of is the egregious nature of
03:47what the government has done. It is anti-democratic, un-American, illegal, and
03:53unconstitutional to suppress speech, censor somebody, detain them, and attempt
04:01to deport them and revoke their green card for speaking their mind. Regardless
04:06of where you might fall on the ideological spectrum, regardless of what
04:10your speech is, if you care about free speech, if you care about democracy, if
04:13you care about the pro-Palestinian or any other sort of advocacy that folks
04:20have in this country, you should be outraged by what the government has done
04:26to our client Mahmoud Khalil. As we await the decision from today's hearing, I want
04:33to make sure that we echo what we're seeing in the streets. The momentum is
04:38with us, the people are with us, and the power is with us. It's important for us
04:43to stand strong and continue because we're not going to back down when our
04:48government tries to attack our most fundamental and most bedrock principles
04:54of our democracy.
04:57The government's motivation here is to delay, and as much as possible, the
05:09adjudication of the actual legality of their unconstitutional actions. They want
05:15to avoid that, and they also want to claim power, to take power away from the
05:21courts and the court's jurisdiction, and have their own authority to move
05:27someone wherever they want, and therefore try and avoid the jurisdiction or power
05:33of this court to actually hear their claims.
05:51The reason they are fighting so hard on jurisdiction, as extraordinary as that is,
06:09is because they want to buy time. They want to buy time in the hope that all of
06:13you will go away, buy time in the hope that all these people will go away, and
06:17so that they can get away with what they're trying to do to Mr. Khalil and
06:20to others.
06:35We would have preferred that he heard our arguments on bail today and decided
06:42everything together as quickly as possible, but we're hopeful that he will
06:46decide this issue, this jurisdictional issue first, and then move very, very
06:52quickly to decide the bail motion given the, you know, sort of outrageous
06:56circumstances of this case and the exigent circumstances of this case,
06:59including now running over two weeks of confinement and his wife's impending birth.
07:16As everybody can imagine, Noor Abdallah, Mr. Khalil's wife, is going through an
07:38extremely difficult period of time. She has said publicly that Mr. Khalil was
07:43her main support during her pregnancy. He prepared all her meals. He made sure
07:48she took the medications she needed to take. The fact that he was taken away
07:52from her in her eight months of pregnancy. She's supposed to give birth
07:57in April. She's a U.S. citizen. Their child will be a U.S. citizen. He was a
08:01green card holder. They had every reason to expect stability and to look forward
08:05to the birth of their first child. Instead, she has to wonder whether he
08:09will be here when that child is born, and that is an injustice that I think
08:12everyone here, certainly the people in the back who have masked consistently to
08:16support Mr. Khalil and to support the human rights of Palestinians, oppose and
08:20object to. And I think most Americans would also find that objectionable.
08:23That's not how the government should move. There's no reason for him to be in
08:26detention, no matter what the government's claims are on the immigration
08:29side. He should be with his family, and he can fight his case in immigration
08:32court from there.