Another video for your Sunday service
Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE agents on March 8, 2025. He is a green card holder, and the husband of an American citizen. Mahmoud was one of the leaders of the nonviolent protests at Columbia University. He has committed no crimes; he has not even been accused of committing any crimes.
Mahmoud is a political prisoner being held by an authoritarian regime. His detention was ordered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a man now fully integrated into the MAGA movement. It only cost Rubio his soul.
“Shortly after his arrest, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, justified his detention by invoking a rarely cited law that he said allowed him to declare Mr. Khalil’s presence in the United States a threat to the country’s foreign policy goal of preventing antisemitism.”1 This is an absurd lie, for which Rubio has not bothered to offer any evidence.
Mahmoud’s wife, Noor Abdalla, a native of Flint, Michigan, was pregnant with their first child when Mahmoud was arrested. On April 21, 2025, Noor gave birth to a son, and named him Deen. Mahmoud asked for supervised release from ICE detention so that he could be present at the birth of his first child. The government denied his request.
On May 22, Mahmoud was awarded a two-hour contact visit with his wife, Noor, and his son, Deen. He held his month-old son for the first time; he held his wife for the first time since his detention. He has not been awarded any further visits with his family.
For Father’s Day, Mahmoud has written a letter to his son, Deen. It is beautiful, heartbreaking, inspiring. Celebrity fathers who support Mahmoud’s cause have teamed up with the ACLU to create a reading of the letter, a short version and a full version, both included below.
The church has so much to learn from Mahmoud Khalil.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/nyregion/mahmoud-khalil-trump-detention.html