Mahmoud Khalil's wife, Noor Abdalla, says his arrest by ICE agents was "one of the most terrifying" moments of her life
When federal immigration officials confronted Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil inside his New York City apartment building earlier this month, his wife, Noor Abdalla, assumed it was a misunderstanding. She rushed upstairs to their apartment to get documents proving he was a U.S. green card holder.
"My husband was taken away from me in the middle of the night. It was one of the most terrifying times of my life. I don't think I've ever experienced anything scarier than that," Abdalla described during an interview with Erin Moriarty for "CBS Sunday Morning" airing on Sunday. It's the first sit-down TV interview Abdalla has given since her husband's arrest on March 8.
"I was scared. I was terrified."
Video released by the ACLU last week shows Khalil's arrest after helping lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University's campus. In the video, which is 8 minutes long, you can see Khalil being handcuffed as he's told to stop resisting. He's heard reassuring his wife, "Baby, it's fine," as he tells the agents that he'll go with them.
"I was scared. I was terrified," Abdalla said of her husband's nighttime arrest.
But Abdalla, who is 8 months pregnant and an American citizen, still believed he would be taken into immigration custody at Federal Plaza in Manhattan and released within hours after officials saw his paperwork.
"People keep telling me like, 'Oh, you were so calm in the video. I would have been freaking out,'" Abdalla said. "For me, I think the reason I was so calm was because I was like, this is just a misunderstanding. They're going to take him away, to 26 Federal Plaza, see that he has a green card, he'll be home in a few hours."
She never imagined the 30-year-old would be taken from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Lower Manhattan to the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, N.J., where, according to published remarks by Khalil, he slept on the ground, and was refused a blanket despite his request. He was then transferred to Louisiana.
A federal judge temporarily blocked Khalil's removal from the U.S., barring the government from deporting him before a hearing could be held. Lawyers for the Trump administration have asked that legal issues be addressed by federal judges in New Jersey or Louisiana rather than New York, where Khalil was arrested. On Wednesday Judge Jesse Furman ruled that the case should be heard in New Jersey, where Khalil's petition challenging the government was filed.
In his first public remarks, Khalil called himself a "political prisoner" and warned that other "visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs."
In a letter dictated by Khalil from detention in Louisiana, he said that his only concern at the time of his arrest was for the safety of his wife.
"I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side," Khalil said. "DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation."
According to a Department of Homeland Security notice obtained by CBS News, DHS wrote that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has "determined" that Khalil's "presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."
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Watch the full interview and hear more of Noor Abdalla's firsthand account of her husband's detainment this Sunday on "CBS Sunday Morning," 9 a.m. ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
