Members of Congress Speak Out Against Detention of Mahmoud Khalil | Palestine Policy Roundup 03.17.25
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Rep. Summer Lee: “Trump’s able to criminalize dissent for one group bc the groundwork was laid by bipartisan censorship. Freedom of speech is our 1st amendment. We're eroding our democratic principles to justify literally erasing Palestinians to appease war criminals.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “Free Mahmoud Khalil. This is straight out of the fascist playbook. Criminalizing dissent is an assault on our First Amendment and freedom of speech. Revoking someone’s green card for expressing their political opinion is illegal. Protesting genocide is not a crime.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Cutting off humanitarian aid to millions of civilians is a war crime. That is exactly what the extremist Netanyahu government is doing now to Palestinians in Gaza. I’ve introduced resolutions to block billions in offensive arms sales to Israel & will demand votes on these bills.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez: “No one more cent. No one more bomb. No one more excuse. I joined 12 of my colleagues to demand Congress block any current and future sales of arms and weapons to the Israeli government. Phase 2 of the ceasefire must proceed and the collective punishment of the Palestinian people must end.”
Sen. Peter Welch: “Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Food is scarce and disease is spreading. I’m introducing legislation that will restore funding to @UNRWA, the only organization in the region with the ability to help Palestinians recover from devastation and live in dignity.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
🗣️ MORE THAN 100 REPRESENTATIVES SPEAK OUT AGAINST UNCONSTITUTIONAL DETENTION OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDENT
More than 100 Representatives spoke out against the unconstitutional detention of Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Kahlil in letters sent to Trump administration officials last week. On Tuesday, 14 Representatives led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s disappearing of Khalil and urged the Secretary to release him from DHS custody. The letter also explicitly criticized the Trump administration's targeting of Khalil on the basis of his political speech and activities in support of Palestinian rights.
On Friday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Rep. Jamie Raskin, and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon led a letter signed by more than 100 Representatives and sent to Secretary Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that criticized the administration’s use of “an obsolete Cold War-era section of the Immigration and Nationality Act” to revoke Khalil’s legal permanent resident status and curtail free speech rights.
It’s crucial that members of Congress continue to speak out against the Trump administration's latest assault on fundamental democratic rights. Mahmoud Khalil’s detention cannot be divorced from the broader extremist MAGA campaign to suppress speech and activity in support of Palestinian rights in furtherance of the anti-immigrant and anti-education agendas included in Project 2025.
Khalil is a green-card holder who was a lead negotiator for Columbia’s Gaza solidarity encampment and a student involved in activism supporting Palestinian rights at the university. Since Khalil was disappeared by ICE agents two Saturdays ago, it was revealed that Secretary Marco Rubio personally signed off on Khalil’s unconstitutional detention using an obscure authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The Trump administration has since stated outright that Khalil has not been charged with a crime and that the revocation of his green card and possible deportation are motivated by his political speech and organizing against Israel’s genocidal actions against Palestinians in Gaza.
Khalil’s detention is just the first step in a broader unconstitutional and anti-immigrant campaign by the Trump administration–the White House announced that it is working to detain more students at Columbia and other colleges and universities who have supported Palestinian rights. This comes on the heels of reports that the State Department is using AI to review the social media accounts of student visa holders as part of its effort to revoke visas for and deport students who speak out in support of Palestinian rights.
📖 LEARN MORE: Check out IMEU Policy Project’s latest policy memo that situates Khalil’s unconstitutional detention in the broader extremist MAGA agendas of Project Esther and Project 2025.
🚫 SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS INTRODUCES NEW JRDs TO BLOCK WEAPONS TO ISRAEL
Last week Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced new joint resolutions of disapproval (S.J.Res.32, S.J.Res.33, S.J.Res.34, S.J.Res.35) that seek to block the Trump administration’s latest $4 billion weapons package for Israel. This weapons package included devastating 2,000-pound bombs, 1,000 pound bombs, JDAMs, and Caterpillar D9 bulldozers.
Senator Sanders also announced that he will be demanding a vote on the JRDs he has introduced, which in addition to those listed above include S.J.Res.20, S.J.Res.21, S.J.Res.22, S.J.Res.23–all of which would block the Trump administration’s previous $8.56 billion weapons deal for Israel.
💡 POLICY ASK: IMEU Policy Project calls on all Senators to cosponsor these JRDs and to vote for them when they come to the floor.
📖 LEARN MORE: Check out IMEU Policy Project’s policy memos on why senators should support these JRDs against President Trump’s earlier $8.56 billion weapons package and his more recent $4 billion weapons package.
🍎 SENATOR PETER WELCH INTRODUCES BILL TO RESTORE US FUNDING FOR UNRWA
Senator Peter Welch introduced a bill to restore congressional funding for UNRWA, with Sens. Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen, Amy Klobuchar, Jeff Merkley, Tina Smith, and Mazie Hirono as original cosponsors. This legislation would repeal Congressional funding prohibitions passed by Congress in 2024 and would direct the Trump administration to rescind its executive order that ended US funding for UNRWA.
While the Trump administration has continued blocking these funds, it was the Biden administration that originally suspended funding to the agency following Israel making unsupported claims about its employees. The US was the only country that after initially suspending funding failed to restore funding subsequently. The US has historically been the largest donor to UNRWA, contributing nearly $344 million to the agency in 2022–nearly 30% of the agency’s donation pledges that year.
IN THE NEWS
🖊️ IMEU POLICY PROJECT LEADS LETTER URGING DNC LEADERSHIP TO TAKE DEM SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS SERIOUSLY
IMEU Policy Project led a letter to Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and Executive Director Roger Lau urging them to learn from the mistakes of the Biden and Harris presidential campaigns’ ignoring of voters’ concerns about the administration’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. IMEU Policy Project was joined by IfNotNow, Gen Z For Change, and Justice Democrats on this letter.
The letter criticizes the Harris campaign for refusing to break from President Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ignoring voters who supported ending weapons transfers to Israel in response to atrocities committed by the Israeli military.
It also asks newly-elected chair Ken Martin to assess whether Biden and Harris’ support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza drove voters away from the campaign and to probe reports that the Harris campaign refused to log voter concerns about Gaza. It also asks the DNC to ban super PAC spending in Democratic primaries.
The letter comes after recent polls identified growing Democratic support for Palestinian rights and freedom. Gallup polls have shown support for Palestinian rights has increased among Democrats as Israel’s favorability rating among the party’s base has plummeted. Another poll published by The Economist/YouGov found that 35% of Democrats sympathize more with Palestinians–more than 3.5 times as much as the 9% who sympathize more with Israelis.
IMEU Policy Project’s recently published poll found that nearly 30% of Biden 2020 voters who did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 indicated that ending Israel’s violence in Gaza was the most important motivation for their vote.
As Democratic Party leadership prepares to review its loss in 2024 and sets its sights on winning elections in 2026, they must heed the call of this letter and of their voters and commit to ending US support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
🌱 UN REPORT: ISRAELI ATTACKS ON REPRODUCTIVE CARE ARE GENOCIDAL ACTS, MILITARY WEAPONIZED SEXUAL VIOLENCE
The Israeli military’s systematic destruction of reproductive care facilities in Gaza constitutes genocidal acts, according to a new report issued on Thursday by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry. The commission found that the Israeli military has “destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza” through its destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare. This meets the definition of two kinds of genocidal acts according to the Genocide Convention–inflicting conditions to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures to prevent births.
Part of the report focused on the Israeli military’s destruction of the Al-Basma In-Vitro Fertilization Center, which was Gaza’s largest fertility clinic and served thousands of patients per month before it was destroyed in December 2023. The report found that an Israeli tank likely fired the shell that hit the clinic despite its clear signage and it being in a standalone building.
That attack directly hit the clinic’s laboratory, destroying approximately 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples. This corroborates a report published by Reuters, which found that an Israeli shell was responsible for the destruction.
The report also details Israeli attacks on maternity wards across Gaza, including attacks at Al-Shifa and Al-Nasser hospitals which took the wards offline, and it notes that obstetric and newborn care is still limited as a result of Israel’s assault on medical facilities in Gaza.
The Israeli military is weaponizing gender-based violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, threats of rape, and sexual assault. The Israeli military has made this violence “standard operating procedure,” according to the report. Much of this sexual violence has been perpetrated by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian men and boys who have been abducted from Gaza and sent to Israeli prisons.
The report also found that rape and other sexual violence against Palestinians were committed under explicit orders or implicit encouragement from Israeli military and civilian leaders. The commission found that this pattern of sexual violence constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
💧 ISRAEL’S TIGHTENING BLOCKADE OF GAZA IS DEPRIVING PALESTINIANS OF FOOD AND WATER AGAIN
Progress made toward alleviating Gaza's humanitarian crisis during the ceasefire is unraveling, according to the UN Secretary-General's spokesperson. Israel’s renewed obstruction of aid and the decision to cut electricity to Gaza is severely restricting the availability of food and water for Palestinians and is a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement. It also marks a return to Israel using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza–a war crime which Human Rights Watch found Israel was committing.
Israel initially cut off all electricity to Gaza in October 2023, and most of the area has not had power from Israel since then. In November 2024, a desalination plant near Deir al-Balah became the only facility in Gaza to be reconnected to electricity supplied by Israel. Now that facility has been forced to slash its capacity to produce drinking water by 85%. According to a UNICEF official, 600,000 Palestinians who gained access to clean water when electricity was restored to this facility will be cut off once again. In December, Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities were responsible for crimes against humanity and acts of genocide in Gaza due to their intentional deprivation of water to Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme reported last week that Gaza was at risk of reversing progress on food security gained during the ceasefire. The WFP has not been able to deliver food to Gaza since the beginning of the blockade and it is only able to support bakeries and kitchens for one more month. The organization reported that 6 bakeries have been forced to close due to a shortage in cooking gas, a shortage for which Israel’s blockade on fuel from entering Gaza is responsible. The WFP has enough food that could feed half of Gaza’s population for 2-3 months awaiting authorization to enter Gaza.
Both of these actions are part of Israel’s reported plan to deprive Palestinians of the necessities of life yet again as a means of putting pressure on Hamas to alter the ceasefire agreement. Much of that plan has been implemented as aid, electricity, and water supplies have been cut off. The plan also includes the forcible transfer of Palestinians from northern Gaza back to the south.
⛑️ ISRAELI MILITARY KILLS JOURNALISTS, AID WORKERS IN GAZA IN LATEST CEASEFIRE VIOLATION
Over the weekend, the Israeli military killed 9 people, including journalists and aid workers from the UK-based Al-Khair Foundation, in a strike on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. Qasim Rashid Ahmad, the founder and chairman of the Al-Khair Foundation, said the group was in the area to document its efforts to provide more tents for the thousands of displaced Palestinians who have returned to northern Gaza following the ceasefire agreement. Ahmad also clarified that the group was in an area that had been designated a “free movement zone” by the Israeli military.
These Palestinians were among the 19 whom the Israeli military killed on Friday and Saturday–including four Palestinian boys in Gaza City who were killed as they were collecting firewood for their meal to break their Ramadan fast.
This weekend’s violence saw some of Israel’s deadliest attacks on Gaza since the ceasefire agreement went into effect, and is just the latest in a string of ceasefire violations. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in violation of the ceasefire agreement since it went into effect. That averages about 3 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military every 24 hours since the ceasefire.
Photo: Artist Nadia Russ, via Shutterstock. Stock Photo ID: 2597064911