Documentary featuring Mahmoud Khalil to be released this month
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Protestors gather to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil at Foley Square on March 10, 2025 in New York City. Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist arrested Saturday, received a temporary reprieve from deportation. Photo: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
A new documentary on the Columbia University student Palestinian rights movement featuring now-detained graduate Mahmoud Khalil will be released at a film festival later this month.
Why it matters: The film, months in the making, gives more insight into the plight of Khalil's family from Palestine during the 1948 Nakba to decades in refugee camps in Syria and his role in 2024 encampment protests.
The big picture: Khalil remains detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana amid a legal battle to prevent his deportation from the U.S. after the Trump administration ordered his removal.
- He was arrested last week after the Department of Homeland Security concluded he was actively supporting Hamas but not materially supporting the terror group, a White House official said.
- His detention has sparked national student protests around the country.
Zoom in: Watermelon Pictures announced Thursday that it has completed "The Encampments," a documentary chronicling the Columbia University encampments and the international wave of student activism they ignited.
- The film is scheduled to debut at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival in Copenhagen on March 25.
- "The film ensures the students in (the) U.S and Gaza are heard, their actions are remembered, and the fight for Palestinian liberation continues," Grammy Award-Winning rapper Macklemore, a co-producer, said in a statement.
Khalil is one of the main protagonists in the film.
- "I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus in Syria. My family's history in Palestine actually goes back as long as my grandparents can trace it," Khalil says in the documentary.
- Khalil talks about how his grandparents were violently forced off their land during the 1948 war and became refugees.
Context: Until now, reporters have been trying to piece together Khalil's biography and determine why the Trump administration targeted him first amid a promised crackdown on immigrants who voice support for the Palestinians.
- ICE records show Khalil is a Syrian national and a citizen of Algeria.
- He was one of the most visible activists in the Columbia protests and served as a student negotiator.
- Khalil finished his master's degree in public administration at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in December and now holds a green card after he married his wife, a U.S. citizen.
Zoom out: Secretary of State Marco Rubio was presented with evidence from the DHS review and determined that Khalil acted against U.S. foreign policy positions, the official said.
- U.S. law allows the secretary of state to deport a green card holder if that person is deemed to have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."
- Green card holders can be removed from the U.S. for many other reasons, like breaking U.S. law. Khalil has not been charged with any crime.
- President Trump praised the Khalil arrest this week, promising it's the first of "many to come."
The intrigue: In an interview with NPR on Thursday, Troy Edgar, the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, struggled to explain what Khalil did to face deportation.
- "I think you can see it on TV, right? This is somebody that we've invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he's put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity," he said.
- But he declined to say what specific actions Khalil committed to amount to removal.
What we're watching: The legal challenge to Khalil might ultimately come down to the Supreme Court, which would decide how far the secretary of state can determine whether a permanent resident can be removed for speech.
