ICE denies Palestinian activist visit with his newborn son

WASHINGTON

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and a prison contractor have refused to grant a contact visit between Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil and his family, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, denying him the chance to hold his newborn son, CBS News reported Wednesday.

The boy was born last month while Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student, remained in ICE custody in Louisiana.

Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, traveled over 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) from New York to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center hoping her husband could meet and hold their child.

"I am furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just," she said in a statement provided to Anadolu.

"This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence...Our struggle is not isolated. This system is unjust, and we will fight until Mahmoud is home," she added.

The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights say that ICE is punishing Khalil for his pro-Palestine activism.

"The government chose to arrest and detain Mahmoud thousands of miles away in the Louisiana detention gulags to punish him for his support for Palestinian human rights and is doubling down on their retaliatory punishment by denying him the most elementary human contact with his wife and child," said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a statement.

Khalil, 30, a legal permanent US resident, was arrested by ICE agents on March 8 for participating in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York City.

He has remained in detention in Louisiana for more than two months while his court case proceeds in New Jersey.