About a year after federal immigration agents first abducted Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and detained him without charge, the pro-Palestinian activist is now urging Americans across the political spectrum to defend the First Amendment against the Trump administration’s efforts to quash it.

Khalil wrote an opinion piece on Wednesday for Fox News, detailing how he, as a green card holder, was taken from his then-pregnant wife in March 2025 because of his role organizing nonviolent campus protests for Palestine — in other words, exercising his First Amendment rights.

“Throughout my 104 days in federal detention, during which I missed the birth of my first child, I considered myself a political prisoner,” he wrote. “The government had deprived me of my liberty, not because I had broken any laws, but because it didn’t like what I had to say.”

Khalil was eventually released and has previously described the inhumane conditions he and other immigrants had to endure while detained. But the Trump administration still continues to fight Khalil in court to get him — and other pro-Palestinian activists like Leqaa Kordia — deported.

“The Supreme Court recognized eighty years ago that the First Amendment protects all of us in the United States — citizens and noncitizens alike — from government persecution for our beliefs,” he wrote.

“If we allow that boundary to be violated for noncitizens, or when the government claims a foreign policy concern, a precedent is created that can be used against all of us,” he continued. “Even citizens. Even people who disagree with me vehemently about Palestine.”

Khalil has the support of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who on Sunday hosted the activist and his wife, Noor, for iftar (the meal that breaks one’s fast during Ramadan). Khalil said that Mamdani was the first elected official to call for his freedom, and the mayor has since asked the president to drop the case against him.

“Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and belongs in New York City,” Mamdani wrote Monday on X. When asked about the optics of iftar with Khalil, the mayor said Thursday that it’s critical “every New Yorker know that I will stand up for their right to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

Khalil is no stranger to leveraging international media to highlight how his experience in detention foreshadows a larger systemic problem in the country — whether it be government corruption, the dehumanizing of immigrants, the U.S. detention system or, in this case, the First Amendment.

But the surprising decision to write for a massive right-wing outlet like Fox News appears to show that Khalil is trying to reach an audience beyond his supporters, with a warning to Americans that their rights could easily be the administration’s next target, regardless of where they stand.

“Our basic rights don’t have a party affiliation, and my case should concern every American,” Khalil told HuffPost on Thursday. “This message needs to reach everyone, not just the people who already agree with me. I will continue to use my voice whenever and wherever I can to stand up for our rights, for justice and for Palestine.”

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