Rhode Islanders rally outside ICE facility in Warwick in defense of Mahmoud Khalil and others detained and deported
“Immigrants have rights. We're here to insist on due process, freedom of speech, & the rule of law. These are basic to human dignity and to the American character, and we're going to fight for them."
Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist during the 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupations, was taken from his home by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8, 2025. Although Khalil has not been charged with any crimes, he is being held at the LaSalle Detention Center, a for-profit prison in Jena, Louisiana. District Judge Jesse Furman, an Obama appointee, has issued a temporary hold on his deportation order. Khalil and his spouse, Noor Abdalla, a United States citizen, expect their first child in April.
On Sunday, nearly 200 people gathered outside the ICE facility at 443 Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick, Rhode Island, to protest Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest and defend political speech protected by the First Amendment.
Here’s the video:
”We got some Quakers. We got some Methodists and Episcopalians. The Unitarians are here. Jewish Voice for Peace is here. Atheists. This is what America is. This is what democracy looks like,” said Reverend Jarrett Kerbel, one of the rally organizers addressing the crowd.
“Why are we here today? We’re here because the Trump administration - or as I like to call them, the GOP Gestapo - is breaking laws left and right as fast as they can. They are causing incredible harm and trying to make President Trump the King of America. That’s wrong, and we’re against that.
“We have four people who are the subject of our picket today. One is Mahmud Khalil, and we know that story. One is local from Providence - Dr. Rasha Alawieh. She’s already been deported to Lebanon out of Logan Airport. We have Fabian Schmidt, who was detained and beaten at Logan Airport and is being held in the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls. Finally, I got this story of someone who has self-deported. Ranjani Srinivasan self-deported after being caught up in a minor police incident at Columbia University during the protest. So she left. She’s smart, but it shouldn’t have to be that way.
“Immigrants have rights. We’re here to insist on due process, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. These are basic to human dignity and the American character, and we will fight for them. We’re going to stand up, we’re going to show up, and we’re going to get in the way.
“I think everybody here knows the Martin Niemöller quote, right? ‘When they showed up for the socialists, I said nothing because I wasn’t a socialist. When they showed up for the trade unionists, I did nothing because I wasn’t a trade unionist.’
“When they show up for the immigrants, we’re going to say something, right? We’re going to show up, and we’re going to get in the way because immigrants have rights. Immigrants are our neighbors. There are probably some immigrants in this crowd right now, and we are so glad you’re here. We are here to protect the rights of immigrants against a regime that is extending its use of abduction and deportation well beyond the legal limits. They have to be stopped, and we’ve got to speak up. I’m so glad you’re here. I want you to make connections and relationships today.”
“We have been organizing against the deportation of our friends and loved ones, and we are building a movement across Rhode Island to fight back against ICE with a unified understanding of how Mahmud Khalil’s kidnapping affects our community in Rhode Island and across the country,” said Amalia, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Deportation Defense Coalition of Rhode Island. “ICE has also been kidnapping our community members here in Rhode Island. The other day, ICE kidnapped a father who was dropping off his children at school in Central Falls. They were waiting at the school to grab the father,r and they snatched him in front of his kids.
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which runs ICE, is present in our Providence community. They’re there to harass and kidnap our community members. Not only that but last week, customs detained and deported Rasha Alawieh and detained and tortured Fabian Schmidt at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls. They both flew into Logan Airport with all the necessary legal paperwork, Rasha with her visa and Fabian with his green card.
“The right-wing moral debate about legal versus illegal immigrants has not made a single difference in the lives of these completely legal immigrants under the Trump administration. Documented or not, all immigrants are currently at risk, and last week is clear proof of that. The crimes committed by ICE on Columbia’s campus, Logan Airport, and at the Wyatt is the political reality we live in, and the freedom of political prisoner Mahmoud Khalil is a battle we must not only fight, but we must win.
“We must win this fight for both Palestinians and immigrants across the country. Let me be clear. If you support immigrant rights, you also support the movement for Palestine. You must. The two are linked, and the Trump Administration’s kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil and many others made that clear to us. The struggle for immigrant rights and Palestine has now come to a head. The increased attacks on immigrants, the U.S.-backed genocide in Palestine, and the repression of the Palestine movement in the United States have the exact root cause. They are two sides of the same coin of United States Imperialism.
“If ICE is allowed on college campuses to seize legal residents for pro-Palestinian organizing, what does this say about our so-called liberal democracy in the face of naked fascism? The far-right media often accuses universities of being these far-left spaces. Still, the reality is that these liberal institutions have spent the last year throwing their students to the dogs. We’ve seen this in California, Texas, and New York. Students have been arrested, suspended, and expelled for supporting Palestinian liberation. And now they’re being kidnapped by ICE. Mahmoud Khalil came to Columbia University to study with a green card, which allowed him to be here legally. DHS officers entered Columbia’s campus via an order from the State Department and had him handcuffed and arrested in his home in front of his pregnant wife. Shame on them.
“It’s clear that Columbia will not lift a finger to free Mahmoud Khalil. But let me be clear: He’ll be free, and his freedom will not be a result of the diverted funds from an obscenely wealthy Ivy League. It will be a victory of the working class and the student movement. We continue to fight, endlessly and tirelessly, on and off the streets, for all immigrants and Palestinians.”
“This protest was scheduled four days ago, and since then, there have been two or three additional high-profile deportations with Rhode Island connections,” said Zach Mezera from the Working Families Party. “That is the point - to keep us on our back foot. There is so much to do. We have to defend Mahmoud Khalil and everyone who has been deported and keep an eye on the bigger picture. They want us to be distracted. They want us to be chasing down every threat, while on the side, they’re picking your pockets.
“It’s all connected. We’re here, and there’s someone detained at the Wyatt, miles away. What happened to the movement in 2020 and 2021 to shut the Wyatt down? Where did it go? We lost the push, and now we’re here again in 2025, where the same national regime is using our local resources to drive their effort. I fear that we focus on the national issues and forget the people pulling the levers in our community. Where are our elected leaders? What is up with Brett Smiley kicking [unhoused] people out of encampments? It’s all connected.
“We elected [United States Representative] Gabe Amo. Why isn’t he lying on the ground in front of the Wyatt right now? Where is he? Why did Jack Reed vote for Trump’s Secretary of the Navy yesterday? Where is he? And it’s not just them. It’s not about making heroes and thinking our politicians will be heroes. These people control the money. These people control the levers of government, and they haven’t decided that this is worth investing in. It is not politically convenient for them yet. So we must make it inconvenient for them, not because they’re special, but because they control billions of dollars. They need to put their bodies on the line like the people here are ready to do.
“And if they don’t, we must find someone else for those spots.
“I feel better than I’ve ever felt about Rhode Island because I have seen people from all races, classes, and backgrounds - more than ever before - ready to put up a fight and say, ‘We don’t give a damn about what they say we can and can’t do. We’re just going to do it.’”
Thanks Steve -- another great and important story. Greatly appreciated.
As an aside, the private prison industry is big business in the US -- they get big contracts from the government to build and run prisons, then invest/donate some of it to political campaigns -- and get more contracts. Quite the investment strategy.
And like most for-profits, they maximize revenue and minimize costs. They have a history of inmate abuses, problems, poor food, low wages for employees, and little money for programs to help inmates learn skills.
They are currently housing more and more immigrant detainees and, no surprise, building more and more prisons aka detention facilities. Biden tried to limit them and even closed a few. Trump is all for expansion of course. CoreCivic is one of the biggest corporations, and getting bigger.
MUMPS do not believe in the rule of law and we are all at risk. Thanks for standing up, protestors and journalists. MUMPS are coming for us all, They are committing treason amd want to kill millions of people. Keep resisting