The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Maximillian Alvarez:

I’m here at the Parkway Theater and I’m sitting with Mahmoud Khalil, freed political prisoner and former Columbia graduate student who was heavily involved in the student-led Justice for Palestine movement and who because of that was abducted by plainclothes ICE agents from his New York apartment building in March of 2025 and locked away in immigration jail for 104 days. But he’s here with us now. Brother Mahmoud, welcome home, man.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Thank you for having me, Max. Thank you so much.

Maximillian Alvarez:

It’s such an honor to be here with you in person. I don’t even know how you begin to answer this question, but I can’t begin without asking it. How are you and your family doing after enduring this horrific nightmare that is sadly still not over?

Mahmoud Khalil:

We’re doing all right and we’re taking it day by day, really sort of surviving under the threat of deportation at any second or worse than that, whatever this government may decide to do at any point. But our fear is part of the fear of so many families in this country who are now worried about sending their children to school. We are in September now and I know a lot of kids are worried about going to school because they’re either undocumented or their parents are undocumented. I’m thinking about just the families in Minnesota and in New York and in Texas who are now under the threat of being really deportation by this or ripping them apart. It’s not only deportation. Haitians

Maximillian Alvarez:

In

Mahmoud Khalil:

Ohio,

Maximillian Alvarez:

Latinos in

Mahmoud Khalil:

Southern California. Anyone who this administration sees as the other or sees as a threat to whatever plans they have. So in that bigger scheme of things also, at least I know my son will be fed tonight. There wouldn’t be a bomb being thrown on our house as happening in Gaza right now as we are speaking. So in the bigger scheme of things, we’re grateful. We’re grateful for the community that’s supporting us.That’s what’s keeping us going forward right now is just the level of support, the level of solidarity, the community that was built around us because of what this government has imposed on me and my family.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I didn’t plan to ask this, but as a father as well, I have to. What was it like to hold your kid that first time?

Mahmoud Khalil:

I don’t think anyone can describe that feeling. It’s just the first time I held Dean was in detention in a courtroom, in an immigration courtroom where verdicts of deportations happen, like rain daily in these rooms. So it was a little bit weird that I was able to reunite with my family in a place where families are being torn apart. But at the same time I felt victorious because that’s a moment that this government tried to steal from me. Although it was only for one hour, but felt the world to me. And of course now being with Dean, a lot of people ask me, “What gives you purpose?” And just seeing Dean and dreaming of a world where he can live in dignity and safety, inequality, just like anyone else, as an American citizen who has the same rights and responsibility as any other American citizen, regardless of his background, regardless of the ethnicity, regardless of anything, really it’s just like being a human.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And how could you not look at your kids and our children and not fight? We’re going to give this world over. We’re going to give their future over to these psychopaths, to these fascists, to these fanatical nut jobs? Of course not.That’s just not an option. But it’s really hard to put that into action on a day-to-day level when we’re being bombarded by so much terror and awfulness. I interviewed members of your former graduate student union at Columbia after you were taken. I’ve interviewed members of my former grad student union in Michigan where activists are having their homes raided by the FBI. I mean, students, community members, workers, people all over this country who are terrified to fight back or do anything because of what happened to you. But you continue to speak out. You wrote this book, No Land to Stand On. You’re here in Baltimore to speak to folks.

What do you and this book have to say to all of us out there about confronting that fear and not living in fear?

Mahmoud Khalil:

I think the fear is very real and I would be lying if I said I don’t have fear about myself, about my children, about my family. But courage is not the absence of fear. It is actually acting despite the fear. I would be lying if I said, “Oh, I’m not afraid.” Or when you are dealing with such injustice and as you’ve mentioned, just these fascist tactics and the way that they dehumanize us, whether as immigrants or whether as Palestinians or just as someone who does not agree with what this government is doing. So to take you back, I think a day after my release, I decided to go to a protest. And I usually am not that protest guy, although I was very heavily involved in the Columbia movement, but I decided to go mainly to give a message that despite all this violence inflicted upon me from the government, from the university, from the institutions and the establishment in this country, I refuse to be silent.

And now my book is out because the government tried to silence me. Or in essence, they tried to make an example out of me so you and others wouldn’t speak out. But to me, this book is a testament that I refuse to be silent. Now the government gave me a platform and they would take it with a grace and responsibility that I should take this platform to advocate for those who don’t have voices. At any moment now there’s over 70,000 immigrant in ICE detention. At every second, there’s at least 70,000 immigrants in detention. That we know

Maximillian Alvarez:

Of. Now they’re like, we don’t even know if they’re keeping proper track.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Exactly. I don’t know how many went through the administrative errors that this administration every now and then does. So really this administration tried to silence me and I refuse to be silent. And that’s why I want to give people not hope, but at least some sort of despite all this violence, you can still speak out because what we’re dealing with right now is this administration, they are bullies and what our parents teach us when a bully come to bully you, you should not – Stand up, baby. Exactly. So that’s what I’m doing right now. And part of my fight is not about staying in the US. It’s more around what happened to me is wrong and shouldn’t happen to anyone else. Even if I win my case tomorrow, I may decide to leave the day after, but that’s totally besides the main point, which is what’s happening is wrong and should be confronted.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, I want to end on that note because ever since you were taken, one of the reasons that people found so much hope in your story was that you continued to use your voice to advocate for others who were locked away in immigration jail, people who couldn’t speak English, people who didn’t have access to lawyers and who could get contact with the outside world. And that meant so much to so many. And of course you ended up in that jail because you were speaking out and speaking up along with millions around the country and around the world against a genocide in Palestine funded by our tax dollars. So here we are in 2026 and I’m not going to say it doesn’t feel like we’re losing everything and that it was all for naught, but I know a lot of our viewers can feel that way when they look at what’s happening to the ruins of Gaza and to the continual onslaught to erase that people from that land while back home they’re using the same tech to disappear our neighbors and family members.

So how do you put all of this in perspective and how do we continue to fight even when it feels like all is lost?

Mahmoud Khalil:

I think hope and resistance is our only option right now because this administration wants us to feel defeated, want us to feel that nothing is working. And the moment that we succumb to that feeling is the moment that they win because even if we remain silent, because I know people who were targeted and remain silent, the administration did not stop going after them because their mere existence was a problem to this administration. And that’s why I’m hopeful because I don’t have any other option. And the fact that the president of the United States came after an unknown student speaks a lot to the successes of our movement because it was impactful. It was actually changing things on the ground. It was changing public opinion in droves. That’s why the president of the United States felt the need to go after a random student to make an example out of him so that others would fear speaking out.

And that’s I think my only message in terms of why we should be hopeful because the change doesn’t happen in a day and night. It is the persistence. It is the continued resistance against all odds when you see that nothing is happening, but you continue because you believe in that. And that’s the thing as Palestinians, why we continue resisting despite everything all odds against us is that we are righteous. We know that human beings, regardless of their faith and nationality, they can see that in us and they would support us. So that’s why we have a strong belief in our cause that it’s a righteous cause. We don’t need millions and billions of dollars to convince public opinion about the righteousness of our cause or not. It’s just like we need to present it and that’s it. And that’s what they are fearing right now.

That’s why you see the establishment in this country is scrambling to control the media, to buy TikTok and to buy CNN and all of these just because we are actually winning and they know they will not be able to stop us. That’s why they’re bringing these all new tactics about, in my case, they’re weaponizing the immigration law from 1952. And in other cases they’re bringing all these alien laws.

Maximillian Alvarez:

They’re

Mahmoud Khalil:

Reaching back to laws from centuries ago. Yeah, 1800 something because they’re looking for tools because we’re actually winning and the public is with us. But also with immigrants, an average American sees that an immigrant is a benefit to this country, whether it is through the work that they do, whether through the diversity they bring. And this country was built upon, I mean recently, I don’t want to stoke about the enslaved people and how this country was built on their shoulders, but recently also immigrants were part of this.

Maximillian Alvarez:

You and I wouldn’t be sitting here if that wasn’t true.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Absolutely. And we absolutely must be conscious of that. And that’s the other thing about why I’m writing the book now, not in five years, because this is urgent. A lot of people ask me, “How would you look at this moment in 20 years?” I don’t want to look at it in 20 years. I want to do what I can do right now to stop it because what’s happening right now is a stain on the constitution, is a stain on the American consciousness, is a stain on every human value that we stand or we say we stand for. And I don’t want to look in 20 years and say, “Oh, we should have done something because it’s happening now in our backyards. An ICE detention center is at least 30 minutes from any one of us right now. If you drive 30 minutes, you would find an ICE detention center.

There’s one

Maximillian Alvarez:

Five minutes that way. Thank you so much, bro.

Mahmoud Khalil:

No, thank you so much,

Maximillian Alvarez:

Max.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Appreciate it, man.

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Reporter 1:

Breaking story in Frederick. We have been told that ICE agents have been camped out in the Taskers Chance neighborhood. Neighbors

Reporter 2:

Say ICE has made a move on one home under the cover of night. That’s exactly what you are seeing right now.

Soolah:

There were protestors next to me. There are protestors across the street. And then I turned to this car and it was right here. And then I heard out of the side, the siren go off and I turned and here’s this car coming at me from on the sidewalk. By

Reporter 1:

Friday night, protestors were chanting on the sidewalk, also trying to block the street and a home they believed ICE was targeting. That’s when Santos says ICE became aggressive. This video shows when an ICE officer drove up on the sidewalk toward protestors. Santos and local activist Sula Kemp say ICE officers became violent.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I’m standing here in Frederick, Maryland, just over an hour west from Baltimore, and I’m standing in a quiet residential neighborhood where just over a week ago, ICE agents in unmarked cars swarmed this neighborhood, surrounded the house behind me. ICE agents are on video beating peaceful protestors with their batons, menacingly driving their cars onto the curbs into the directions of protestors. And I’m standing here with Sula, who is a local resident of the area and who was here the night of those events. Sula, thanks so much for joining me here. Can you walk listeners through what happened and what you saw that night?

Soolah:

Okay. I was asked by as many people were asked to come and help. So I had that time and I was able to come down and I saw different ICE peoples actually around this whole neighborhood. They were in different pockets and locations. I hadn’t even come to this street. I had gone to two streets down and then the next street right over and you could see where they were positioned. And then there was also one that was driving around that seemed to be sort of intimidating by chasing cars, which I thought was really strange behavior because you didn’t see anything on the vehicle to say who it was. It didn’t say police, it didn’t say anything. Didn’t have any markings on the cars. So we didn’t know who they were. Assumed they were ice and their lights were just kind of on. They’re just sitting in their cars parked on the street.

So then there was a call later. I was there about three hours and then somebody had just said they need people on this street specific. So I was like, “Well, I’ll just walk over.” And they said that there was one car that had a spotlight on protestors. And what they were apparently trying to do on this street was just line the sidewalk, a public space with protestors. So that was fine. So I was like, “All right, let me take my phone and go to the other side and get the perspective of the spotlight being put onto the protestors.” So I did that. I first took a bit of video from this side as an observer and then went to the other side and stood there and watched just cars. And then all of a sudden as I was standing on the sidewalk, I heard a siren go off, just a few bursts of it.

And I happened to turn my camera and there was a car on the sidewalk coming toward me and telling me, and everybody who’s on the sidewalk, “Move, move, get out of the way.” At some point they sa, “You’re impeding a federal investigation.”

Maximillian Alvarez:

We’re talking about a car driving up

Soolah:

Right

Maximillian Alvarez:

Here where we’re standing.

Soolah:

Right. On the sidewalk, public space.

Maximillian Alvarez:

These are people’s houses. They’re driving onto people’s property.

Soolah:

Well, and if you or I had done that, what would’ve happened to us?

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah, they’d throw my ass in jail.

Soolah:

Reckless endangerment of people. And it was crazy. They stopped for a hot second and I jumped onto the grass at first and then I stepped back onto the sidewalk because I was like, “I don’t know what’s happening.” Just a natural response. I was like, “Wait a minute, I’m on the sidewalk.” So I stepped back on the sidewalk and then he started really coming. He did not stop and he sped up toward me first and then there was a woman behind me. And then there was another person, another protestor that they did hit and started to push with their car.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So you were standing right around here?

Soolah:

I was right here. And there was a car there. There was a car across the street. So I had my camera on this car. There were protestors next to me. There were protestors across the street. And then I turned to this car and it was right here. And then I heard out of the side, the siren go off and I turned and here’s this car coming at me from on the sidewalk. I jumped over to here. He passed me. He hit another protestor and then pushed that protestor out of the way. And then the protestors at some point have been sitting down, just linked arms, sitting down, singing and chanting right in the middle of the street, which is fine. They can do whatever they want to.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Community members surrounding one of their neighbor’s homes to try to protect them. Yeah. And then agents of the state come in and start beating the hell out of them for it.

Soolah:

Yeah. So they sat in the road and then they did get up and did that protection. And it’s a typical thing that people do to blockade, but peacefully, they didn’t do anything. They just linked arms. You can’t do much when you’re linked arms. And it’s a whole group of people. And then all of a sudden Frederick Police were coming and then they moved up to the porch area and started beating them up.

Maximillian Alvarez:

You and I are standing here right now on this quiet residential street. People who are watching this may have only seen a small slice of this street on line. What they can’t see is that this is the quietest residential street you can imagine. There’s nothing happening here. You would think with all the ICE agents and vehicles that were here last week that this would be a hotbed of overrun with criminals and criminal activity. It’s just families and houses.

Soolah:

Yeah, it’s very quiet here. You can drive around here and people are working, people are doing their lives and that’s it. So it’d be like every day storm into your everyday world in your suburban America, and that’s what happened. And when you look at now, it’s quiet, it’s peaceful here. So they brought a sense of terror and they brought a sense of unsafety. So yeah, the main set of protestors, they’re stationed on the sidewalk here right at the stop sign. There’s a whole group here. And then there was an ice vehicle here. There was an ice vehicle behind –

Maximillian Alvarez:

Right behind

Soolah:

Where I’m standing. Right behind where you’re standing. Because they started sort of parading in, it looked like a little ice parade. And I’m just joking about that because it was so weird. Once they got into the house, I could hear up in one of the rooms them banging stuff around. And another protestor had asked me, who was observing, asked me, “Do you hear that?” I was like, “Oh yeah,” because it was loud. I don’t know how the house was on the inside when this was all done, but this was a lot. And then I actually went and looked through the back part. They had a shed or some kind of building out in the back there, and you could see these guys go into the back and they started searching. They didn’t know how to get open the shed or whatever because it’s big, but eventually they did.

And it was eerie. It was very eerie.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And it feels reminiscent of the Gestapo view.

Soolah:

It does because who bangs down a door like that? Who goes through looking for whomever? And apparently they didn’t take anybody. I don’t understand why it all happened in the first place.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. So all that terror for nothing?

Soolah:

All that terror for nothing.

Maximillian Alvarez:

How do you move on from something like this? How does this community move on? How are folks responding?

Soolah:

I know right now they’re collecting donations for the people who were beaten because they had hospital bills. And it’s really hard because I don’t know them all personally. I came because just like anybody else, we don’t know each other half the time, but we do see something in need. So they do have a donation set up for them specifically. I am not sure what the next steps are. I know that I have personally tried to contact the attorney general’s office a few times. I haven’t heard anything yet. And I’m hoping that somebody who’s above, in some kind of governmental stance or something, because who feels safe going to the police when you watch the police stand there? There’s the question. I didn’t report anything to them, even though I had a vehicle come at me on the sidewalk. I doubt anybody else is really going to feel comfortable or safe, and maybe that’s the point.

Maybe that was the point too. I can’t speak for that, but it’s just what goes in my head, why would I contact you to tell you what happened? So I want to go higher up.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And so when you were here and you had federal agents and unmarked cars and you also had local police, did you feel in that moment like the police were there to protect you?

Soolah:

No. And the wild thing too is on the car that, at least this car that came at me, you couldn’t tell who they were because their license plate was tinted out. There’s nothing identifying that either. So who are these people? I don’t know if Frederick Police had some kind of directive because I don’t know what even drew them out here in the first place. Maybe they heard that people were getting beat maybe, but they were here before that happened. So maybe they have to take a specific. I don’t know. I literally do not know. And if that’s the case, if they have a specific directive or they don’t know what to do, maybe that needs to be talked about. Maybe something like this, when you have unmarked cars doing reckless behavior with their cars, doing reckless behavior towards other people, what is the community’s protect and serve folks going to do for the community?

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Who are you protecting? Who are you

Soolah:

Serving?

Maximillian Alvarez:

Not us.

Soolah:

There are tax dollars going into all of this too, that people are going to step back and go, “Wait a minute, what’s happening here? I’m putting money toward them and it’s whoever was called out here for that night.” Who knows? I don’t know. But at the end of the day, who are they protecting?