Political Persecutions Erode The Fabric Of Society

I watched as a loved one was unfairly arrested and detained in Turkey—now, I’m watching the same thing happen to families in the U.S.

By Nyki Duda, The Progressive

In recent weeks, the Trump Administration has intensified its crackdown on foreigners inside the United States, with tourists, green card holders, and even U.S. citizens caught up in the operations. Academics and students linked to the pro-Palestine movement have become prime targets of the administration. Last month, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested several of these individuals, including Badar Khan Suri, a fellow at Georgetown University who was arrested in front of his family, and Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student who was ambushed in the middle of the street.

The first reported detention of a foreign activist took place on March 8, when ICE agents arrested Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil in front of his pregnant U.S. citizen wife, Noor Abdalla. Khalil, a legal U.S. permanent resident, previously served as a negotiator on behalf of the Palestine solidarity protest movement at Columbia University, where he finished his graduate studies in December. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has since accused him of leading “activities aligned to Hamas,” but he has not been charged with a crime. Though a judge has paused his deportation, Khalil’s arrest led to a nationwide explosion of protest and outrage over what many see as a violation of free speech and protest rights that could have wider implications.

In her first media interview after Kahlil’s arrest, Abdalla told Reuters she’d tried to assure Khalil that as a green card holder, he’d be safe. “Clearly, I was naive,” she said. The couple reportedly met in Lebanon in 2016, and were married in New York two years ago. The article was published alongside photos of an eight-months-pregnant Abdalla holding a framed photo from their wedding and an ultrasound image of the couple’s unborn child.

“It would be very devastating for me and for him to meet his first child behind a glass screen,” Abdalla told Reuters. “I’ve always been so excited to have my first baby with the person I love.” Abdalla reportedly ended the interview when she saw Khalil was calling her from the detention center in Jena, Louisiana, where he has been held for nearly a month.

After reading the details of Khalil’s arrest, I could not stop thinking of Abdalla and crying—though now there are many more people in her situation, including Badar Khan Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, and their three children, and the families of the other migrants who have been affected so far. Like most of my fellow U.S.-born Americans, I have not lived through anything like what Abdalla and others experienced on U.S. soil, but we do have at least one thing in common: eight years ago, my now former husband was arrested in front of me in our apartment in Istanbul, Turkey.