Hundreds rally in Milwaukee for Mahmoud Khalil

Photos by Yaseen Najeeb

On Mar 14, Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine members rallied to spotlight the illegal detention of Columbia University graduate, activist, Mahmoud Khalil. 

More than two hundred demonstrators rallied Friday in front of the Federal Building in Milwaukee for Mahmoud Khalil, who is detained by the U.S. government and threatened with deportation for his role in protests at Columbia University against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine called for the emergency rally for Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and lawful permanent United States resident. Homeland Security took the recent Columbia graduate student from his home the night of March 8, when he and his wife, a U.S. citizen, returned from an iftar dinner and relocated him to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to reporting from NPR.

The Trump administration argues they have the right to deport Khalil and revoke his green card without charging him with a crime under a rarely used immigration provision. That provision gives the Secretary of State the power to personally decide to deport someone if they decide their presence could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,” Zeteo reported.

Othman Atta, ISM director, questioned what kind of threat Mahmoud Khalil posed to the United States, other than speaking out against a genocide. 

In a quickly organized rally, WCJP’s 87 member organizations drew a large crowd of protestors to the Federal Building in Milwaukee on Friday afternoon. WCJP formed in October 2023 to call on the U.S. government to end its support of Israel’s war in Gaza, which caused the deaths of probably more than 186,000 people according to an article in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, published in July 2024, eight months ago. International organizations have condemned Israel for significantly limiting humanitarian aid, systematically targeting hospitals and killing civilians in airstrikes, including children.

Many protestors wore traditional Palestinian keffiyehs, the black and white checkered scarves, over their shoulders and waved big red, black and green Palestinian flags. Some carried signs and banners with slogans like, “Free Mahmoud! Free Palestine!” and “Protect Free Speech” and “Protesting is not a Crime!” Others banged drums to the rhythm of the crowd’s chants. Passing cars on Wisconsin Boulevard honked and waved in solidarity as protestors pumped their fists in response.

Milwaukee’s protest for Khalil is one of many across the nation

“Hey do we have one person out here?” Rachel Ida Buff, Ph.D., yelled to the crowd. “No! Do we have a hundred people out here? No! Do we have millions and millions of us across the country? Yes! … We are millions!”

Indeed, protests calling for Khalil’s release were held last weekend in major cities across the U.S., including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Miami, Indianapolis, Charlotte, North Carolina and many others. About 150 demonstrators affiliated with a progressive Jewish activist group protested last Thursday in Trump Tower in New York City, the New York Times reported. Ninety-eight of them were arrested.

Buff emphasized the fact that she is also Jewish, proclaiming, “I’m a proud Jewish leftist!” 

Rachel Ida Buff, Ph.D., co-founder of Jewish Voice for Peace-Milwaukee, a member of Never Again Action Wisconsin and WCJP co-chair spoke to a local ABC News reporter at the rally for Mahmoud Kahlil.

Buff is a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor and historian of migration and immigrant rights movements, whose research focuses on international political mobilizations and repression from the Cold War to the present. She is a co-founder of Jewish Voice for Peace-Milwaukee, a member of Never Again Action Wisconsin and WCJP co-chair. 

“My ancestors came here fleeing racist eliminationist programs in Eastern Europe and found relative safety in the United States. But Jews were among the many leftists who suffered under the repressive heyday of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, who was a good friend and ally to the Nazis trying to restore their power in the United States and Germany after World War II … 

“Claims about campus antisemitism distort threats to Jewish communities today,” she continued. “The clear and present danger to Jews and to all of us is the return of the party of suppression under the most antisemitic administration in American history, a regime that empowers Nazis and white supremacists, that actively hates Jews and Muslims, trans and queer folk, people of color and immigrants, along with any kind of descent. This regime has absolutely nothing—no solutions, no programs, just hate and destruction.

“I know what makes me, my family, my people, my community safe is exactly what I’m doing now, standing with you, being part of our community of resistance,” she added.

“Khalil is a political prisoner of this white nationalist imperialist regime. And we know that we’ll accept nothing less than freedom for Mahmoud, freedom for all the immigrants now detained in for-profit, miserable conditions for those held in US and Israeli jails for crimes of resistance, for crimes of poverty, for crimes of being Palestinian or black or brown. We will be out here until they are all free.”

Alan Chavoya, (on right) treasurer for the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, an ever present activist for the WCJP emphasized the oppression targets Palestinians, immigrants, workers and free speech.

Buff encouraged the crowd to participate in a lobby day in Madison on April 23 against “the repressive BDS law in this state,” that punish calls to boycott or divest from companies or organizations that support Israel.

In an interview at the protest with a WISN reporter, Buff explained, “Historically, Jews and Palestinians have lived together in Palestine for generations,” she said. “It’s only the advent of the Zionist state, which was created by Europeans and Americans who were too antisemitic to welcome us here and in Europe after World War II, that has split us apart.”

Banding together

Speakers at the rally highlighted their common fight for the oppressed as members of movements for Palestinian rights, immigrant rights, civil rights, religious rights, workers’ rights and free speech rights.

“The case around Khalil is an attack on Palestine and on those who stand with Palestine,” said rally emcee Alan Chavoya, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression treasurer. “It is an attack on workers. It is an attack on immigrants. It is an attack on Muslims. It is an attack on the students.

“This is who’s standing up for Mahmoud Khalil. It is us, the people! All around the U.S., we’re witnessing people mobilizing around Mahmoud,” observed Chavoya. “He represents a student movement … that doesn’t want this country’s wars anymore. He also represents the immigrants who are threatened every single day with detention and/or deportation. But also, he is representing the workers. Just yesterday, the union president who was representing the workers at Columbia University was fired by the university. Shame!”

Organizer Deisy Espana, a member of Comite Sin Frontera, a branch of Voces de la Frontera, Wisconsin’s largest immigrant and worker rights organization, related the case of Mahmoud Khalil to the struggles of immigrants.

“What we are seeing right now is Mahmoud, a green card holder who exercises First Amendment rights, being detained. If they can do that to someone of his status, what does it mean for someone who is undocumented? … It has also brought forth courage from those who have been afraid to stand up. The overwhelming support Mahmoud has received from millions of people across the country shows the power of community and what being part of a coalition like the one we are all part of today can do.”

Espana encouraged protestors to “show up and continue to fight for their rights” by marching in Milwaukee on May 1, “A Day Without Immigrants.”

Activist Justin Blake of Kenosha, who became nationally prominent for protests he led against police brutality after his brother Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot in the back and paralyzed by a white Kenosha police officer who responded to a domestic violence call. Blake linked Black Americans’ fight for equality and civil rights to that of Palestinians. Blake said his “heroes,” Nelson Mandela and Malcom X supported the Palestinian struggle for liberation. 

Fighting for free speech

“What was the supposed crime that Mahmoud Khalil is alleged to have violated?” asked ISM director Othman Atta. “The fact is that he was exposing a genocide. He was exposing the killing of children. He was exposing the fact that our government was funding and arming this regime that has absolutely no qualms against destroying an entire society. Gaza has been obliterated. You guys have seen the pictures!

“What kind of a threat is Mahmoud Khalil?” Atta continued. “He’s not a threat physically to the United States. He’s a threat because the information he’s providing about what the U.S. government is doing and that the billionaires funding these anti-student movements are doxing students, are calling for students not to be hired, that they are making sure workers are being kicked out of their jobs. 

“The fact that someone like Mahmoud exposes them and says that is what this country represents with this government—that’s the problem. And that’s why he’s being deported.

“I want to make it clear—we should be worried. This government has absolutely no red lines. They will do anything, go against anyone.”

Students who have been on the front lines of the protest also shared their experiences and thoughts at the rally. A student representing the UWM Popular University for Palestine told the crowd, “We are here today because a student just like me, an activist like all of us, is being punished for speaking truth to power … because he stood for justice. 

“They’re trying to make an example of him to chill others from making similar speeches. This is not about one student. It’s a warning, a message to all of us, every activist, every student, every person who dares to speak out, ‘Stay silent or you could be next.’

“But we refuse to be intimidated. We refuse to let fear dictate our actions. If we don’t fight for him now … standing up for Palestine will be punishable on our own campuses. 

“At UWM, we have faced these repressions and consequences for the same reason—to make an example of us to instill fear and to discourage others from standing up (for what is right). Constant suspensions, ongoing investigations and petty citations have become the norm for student activists. But we refuse to back down this oppression that we are seeing today is part of a long and ugly history that our country has of silencing movements for justice …

“They want us to feel alone, to feel small, to believe that resistance is futile. But look around. Mahmoud is not alone. We are not alone. From campuses across the country to people around the world, our voices are rising together. And if it’s one thing that history has shown us is that no empire, no administration, no system built on oppression has ever been able to outlast the power of the people.”

Deisy Espana, a member of Comite Sin Frontera, a branch of Voces de la Frontera, encouraged protestors to “show up and continue to fight for their rights” by marching in Milwaukee on May 1, “A Day Without Immigrants.

A representative of Students for a Democratic Society highlighted the treatment of students at Columbia University, including 22 students who have either been expelled or had their degrees revoked, she said. “What y’all may not know is these tactics have been copied and pasted right here at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,” she said. “In SDS, we have one member suspended for pro-Palestine activism and three housing workers fired for standing for Palestine … they sent police to monitor Chapman Hall and raid the encampment. 

“But the tide is turning as people in the country are waking up and realizing that crimes against humanity are funded with their tax dollars. Israel lives on stolen land and borrowed time.

“We look to Gaza and the West Bank, these people refusing to give up after months of siege. We carry their spirit with us. We must keep it up until Mahmoud is free, until the people are free, until the land is free.”

*Wisconsin Muslim Journal chose not to name student activists because of the many repercussions student activists are facing in Wisconsin and around the United States.

A violinist performed as the rally concluded.