Lawmakers Visit Students Detained for Supporting Palestinian Rights | Palestine Policy Roundup 04.28.25
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Sen. Peter Welch on detained student Mohsen Mahdawi: “When I met with Mohsen Mahdawi today, we spoke about how appreciative he is to have the support of so many people in Vermont. He said one of the reasons he wanted to become a citizen was because of his belief in American democracy. He hopes that justice will prevail in his case.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “It's been 51 days since ANY humanitarian aid has entered Gaza. Israeli Minister of Defense Katz has said: ‘Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza.’ This is a war crime. We must end our complicity.”
Rep. Jim McGovern on detained students: “Rümeysa Öztürk & Mahmoud Khalil broke no laws, yet have been denied due process & locked away for exercising their First Amendment rights. Make no mistake: they are political prisoners, detained not for what they’ve done, but for what they dared to say. We went to Louisiana to hear their stories & demand their release.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley: “Rümeysa & Mahmoud’s kidnappings aren’t an anomaly — they're the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties. Silencing dissent is unlawful, unjust, and authoritarian through and through. And we will not allow this abuse of power to go unchecked.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
🔒 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS VISIT MAHMOUD KHALIL, RÜMEYSA ÖZTÜRK, AND MOHSEN MAHDAWI DURING RECESS
Last week, members of Congress visited the facilities where Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, two of the most prominent targets of the Trump administration’s crackdown on speech in support of Palestinian rights, are being unconstitutionally detained in Louisiana.
The delegation included Reps. Troy Carter, Bennie Thompson, Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern, and Sen. Ed Markey, who met with both Khalil and Öztürk. This is the first time that a Congressional delegation has met with either of them.
The lawmakers said that they also conducted oversight of the conditions in which Khalil and Öztürk are being held; they reported inadequate food and medical care and a lack of religious accommodations. Pressley reported that Öztürk had to ask for toilet paper three times before it was provided to her by detention facility staff. This is in line with Öztürk’s description of her conditions as “unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane” in a court filing earlier this month.
In comments following their visits, the members spoke out against the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech and connected the cases of the two students to the Trump administration’s broader agenda of mass deportations.
Separately, Senator Peter Welch visited unconstitutionally detained Columbia student activist Mohsen Mahdawi in Vermont. During their meeting, Mahdawi reiterated his belief in democracy and justice and highlighted that his citizenship process taught him about fundamental democratic rights like freedom of speech and assembly.
These detentions must be understood as part of the Trump administration’s extremist mass deportation agenda. The tactics used by the Trump administration in these cases mirror those used in so many other cases, including the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
From El Salvador to Louisiana, Democratic lawmakers’ visits underscore a growing recognition: Trump’s crackdown on dissent is inseparable from his attacks on immigrant communities and the broader extremist MAGA agenda. For the sake of due process, the right to free speech and the rule of law, members of Congress must continue to speak out.
IN THE NEWS
🌱 MAHMOUD KHALIL MISSES HIS CHILD’S BIRTH AS FEDS REVEAL HE WAS ARRESTED WITHOUT A WARRANT
Last week, Dr. Noor Abdalla–Mahmoud Khalil’s wife–gave birth to their son in New York while her husband remained in detention more than 1,000 miles away in Louisiana. Abdalla was eight months pregnant when Khalil was abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their New York City apartment building.
Immigration authorities denied a request by Khalil for a temporary release from detention less than an hour after it was submitted–indicating that immigration officials refused to provide any consideration for a number of proposals by Khalil’s legal team to allow for his temporary release. Khalil was forced to experience the birth of his child through a phone call rather than being there himself.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: In a statement after she gave birth, Abdalla said that this denial was “a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer” and that “ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud's support for Palestinian freedom.”
In yet another stunning revelation that further demonstrates the flimsy nature of Khalil’s persecution, the federal government admitted in a court filing that he was detained without a warrant. This contradicts what agents wrote in their report about his detention and what they told him when he was detained. Khalil’s lawyers are asking that his immigration case be terminated on these grounds.
This filing came just over a week after NBC News found that the federal government is relying on tabloids and erroneous evidence in its case against Khalil. These revelations highlight the completely baseless nature of the attack against Khalil and further emphasizes the true purpose of the Trump administration’s assault on Khalil and so many others: to suppress and silence support for Palestinian rights.
⚖️ FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS RÜMEYSA ÖZTÜRK TO BE RETURNED TO VERMONT AS DETAILS OF MOHSEN MAHDAWI’S DETENTION REVEALED
Last week a federal judge ordered that Rümeysa Öztürk must be moved back to Vermont by this Thursday and her habeas challenge to her unconstitutional detention by ICE agents should be heard in the state.
This legal victory is an important repudiation of the Trump administration’s strategy of whisking away detainees to detention facilities in areas adjudicated by courts that are friendlier to its extremist mass deportation agenda. This order affects her challenge to her detention in federal court, which is a different jurisdiction than her immigration case. Öztürk’s immigration case will continue to be heard in Louisiana immigration courts even as she is held in Vermont and her habeas petition is heard there, according to the order.
Separately, a federal judge in Vermont extended an order stopping the federal government from transferring Palestinian green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi out of Vermont and ordered that a hearing on his request for release on bail be held this Wednesday.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: In a statement following the hearing, Mahdawi said: “This hearing is part of the system of democracy; it prevents a tyrant from having unchecked power. I am in prison, but I am not imprisoned. A system of democracy guarantees freedom of speech, speaking of Palestine does not only qualify as freedom of speech, but it is also about our humanity. Keep the hope alive; I will see you under the sun.”
Details of Mahdawi’s detention were also revealed in a court filing. Mahdawi reportedly had taken the oath of citizenship when an immigration official walked out and ICE agents marched into the office that he was in, taking him into custody there. This account once again makes it clear that Mahdawi was ambushed in a cruel weaponization of the citizenship process.
Mahdawi’s lawyers also revealed that the ICE agents planned to take him to Louisiana, just as they did to Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk. Agents had printed tickets for Mahdawi on a commercial flight out of Vermont. Agents also reportedly denied Mahdawi medical care when he felt sick, instead taking him to the airport.
Mahdawi’s illness ultimately caused him to miss the flight–possibly the only reason that he remains in Vermont now rather than more than 1,000 miles away in Louisiana. Agents also reportedly discussed transferring him to Massachusetts but did not do so after a judge signed the order that prohibited him from being transferred.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🍎 WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME RUNS OUT OF FOOD IN GAZA AS ISRAELI BLOCKADE STARVES PALESTINIANS
On Friday, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it had run out of food for families in Gaza as a result of Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid entering Gaza. WFP delivered its last food stocks to hot meal kitchens last week, calling it the last critical lifeline for food assistance for Palestinians in Gaza.
At the end of March, WFP ran out of flour that it was supplying to bakeries that provided affordable bread. All 25 bakeries it was supporting shut down as a result of Israel’s obstruction of more flour and cooking fuel. That same week WFP announced that it ran out of food parcels that were distributed to families.
UNRWA also reported that it has depleted its flour supplies and that it only has 250 food parcels left in Gaza.
Israel has imposed a blockade on all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza for more than eight weeks now. As recently as two weeks ago, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. In the month after Israel began its blockade, more than 3,000 children in Gaza were admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition.
Israel’s starvation of Palestinians in Gaza is a war crime, and its obstruction of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza is a violation of US law–including Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act. US law necessitates an immediate halt of weapons to Israel in response to this starvation, but the Trump administration has so far supported Israel’s blockade.
💣 MASSIVE US-SUPPLIED BOMBS USED BY ISRAEL TO STRIKE DISPLACEMENT TENTS
Israel used a highly destructive US-supplied 1,000-pound or 2,000-pound bomb in an April 19 strike on the tents of displaced Palestinians in Al Mawasi, which was formerly called a humanitarian zone, according to munitions expert Trevor Ball. 11 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on tents in the area that day as more than 90 Palestinians were killed in 48 hours by the Israeli military.
Whether Israel used an MK-83 (1,000-pound bomb) or an MK-84 (2,000 pound bomb), the result is the same: mass destruction and devastation for Palestinians who Israel targets. Using these massive bombs in an area as densely populated as Al Mawasi virtually guarantees the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians due to the destruction they cause.
Earlier this year the Trump administration sent thousands of these types of bombs and more in two weapons packages for Israel valued at more than $12 billion, presumably funded by American taxpayers. When a Joint Resolution of Disapproval which sought to block this transfer of 2,000-pound bombs was voted on in the Senate, only 15 Senators voted to block it despite evidence of their use in apparent war crimes by Israel.
Between April 15 and April 21, Israel killed 78 Palestinians who were displaced and sheltering in tents in 23 different incidents. These attacks often spark fires that can spread rapidly throughout densely populated displacement camps like Al Mawasi, which in many cases have burned Palestinians alive.
Many of these attacks killed Palestinians who were sheltering in areas that were once designated humanitarian zones by the Israeli military; it appears that Israel has stopped mentioning humanitarian zones altogether. These so-called humanitarian zones were in name only–Israel routinely targeted Palestinians who took shelter in them, targeting the Al Mawasi zone nearly 100 times before the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in January.
🚧 ISRAELI STRIKES DESTROY EQUIPMENT NEEDED FOR CLEARING RUBBLE IN GAZA
Israeli strikes last week targeted and destroyed critical equipment that was used to clear rubble and rescue Palestinians trapped in it. An Israeli strike on a municipal garage in northern Gaza destroyed nine bulldozers that were brought in as part of the ceasefire agreement. Israel was reportedly aware of the presence and coordinates of these machines. Several more bulldozers were destroyed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on the same night.
The bodies of more than 11,000 Palestinians are still estimated to be trapped in the rubble of Israel’s destruction of Gaza. These bulldozers were critical for clearing the rubble during the ceasefire.
Photo: SWinxy, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons