Free Mahmoud Khalil

Defend the Right to Organize, Protest

Resist Trump’s Gestapo Tactics

Shut Down Immigrant Prisons, Abolish ICE

Palestinian activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was abducted by ICE agents on March 8 and was transferred to the LaSalle detention center (a for-profit ICE prison) in Jena, Louisiana. Yesterday, after major protests, a federal judge temporarily halted his deportation. 

This act of political repression is a major escalation by Trump. Already, thousands of our immigrant siblings suffer unjust detention, often in retaliation for organizing for better conditions in their workplaces and communities. During Trump’s first term, ICE agents carried out a mass raid of 680 workers at a poultry processing plant in Mississippi. Many were organizing with the Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and had just won a $3.75 million settlement against Koch Foods for wage theft, discrimination, and sexual harassment.

The persecution of Khalil is a replay of the Palmer Raids which targeted immigrants as a means of crushing the growing movement within the U.S. for workers’ rights, women’s liberation, and more. Just as the Palmer Raids were carried out to retaliate against a heroic strike of miners — organized jointly by citizen and immigrant workers — the detention of Khalil is meant to crush the progressive student movement which exploded in protest of the U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine. 

Trump is threatening to withhold disaster relief for state and city governments that do not bend to his fascist dictates. He is threatening to defund schools that teach history. The mass firings carried out by Musk and Trump are also part of their campaign of terror. They want to crush the movement for gender equality, environmental justice, Black liberation — anything that stands in the way of their efforts to squeeze as much profit from us as they can.

Our power to resist Trump’s fascist moves derives from our unity, our ability to act as one.

Stand up for our immigrant siblings and demand full legal and labor rights for them all. Close the camps.

Stand with our Palestinian siblings as they struggle to liberate their homeland from the grips of U.S.-funded fascism. Their struggle is ours.

#NotOneMore #AbolishICE #FreeMahmoudKhalil

Workers Voice Socialist Movement is based in New Orleans, Louisiana.