A group of celebrity fathers has come together to readMahmoud Khalil’s letter to his newborn son, calling attention to the Palestinian activist’s continued detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on his first Father’s Day.
In the video,releasedby the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the celebrity dads – actorsMark Ruffalo,Mahershala Ali, Dallas Goldtooth, Arian Moayed, Mo Amer and Alex Winter; comic and television host W Kamau Bell; and the musician Tom Morello – read excerpts from Khalil’sletterdirectly to a camera.
Khalil penned the letter, first published by the Guardian in May, as a direct address to his son, Deen, who was born in April while Ice continued to hold Khalil in prison in Louisiana. The video ends with a message from the ACLU that “all fathers deserve to be with their children on Father’s Day”, as well as a link to an ACLUpetitionto free Khalil.
Khalil, a former graduate student atColumbia Universitywho helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at the school, was arrested by plainclothes immigration officials on 8 March, while walking home from dinner in New York City with his wife, Noor Abdalla. A green card holder with a student visa, Khalil has never been charged with a crime. The Trump administration seeks to deport him on the grounds that his beliefs constitute a threat to national security. Since March, he has been held in a Louisiana detention center 1,500 miles away from his family and the site of his arrest.
The video begins with Khalil’s voice, speaking to his son over the phone from the detention center: “Yaba Deen, these are my first words to you,” he says over a clip of Deen in yellow pyjamas.
The eight fathers then recite Khalil’s words, explaining how, as he wrote, “I am absent not out of apathy, but conviction”.
“How is it that the same politicians who preach ‘family values’ are the ones tearing families apart?” says Ali.
“Loving you is not separate from the struggle for liberation,” says an emotional Amer, a Palestinian-American comedian, in Khalil’s words. “It is liberation itself. I fight for you, and for every Palestinian child whose life deserves safety, tenderness and freedom.”
“I am a Palestinian refugee, came to America, became a citizen in 2009, and in 2023 I had a son,” Amer said in a statement explaining his participation. “Mahmoud’s letter is like a dagger to the heart, and that’s why I’m doing this.”
Added Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure star Winter: “I’m recording this as a father and a great believer in due process and the rule of law.”
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“I am a father and that’s why I’m making this video,” said Moayed. “I can’t imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for labor rights. I can’t imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for Iranian rights. I can’t imagine being taken away from my child for speaking up for veterans’ rights. All of which I have done in the past. And now I’m saying the same thing.”
“No human being deserves to be taken away from their child because of what they believe in,” he added. “That’s not what this country is made for.”
Khalil’s arrest, the first in awave of detentionsof pro-Palestinian protesters in the US, ignited nationwide outcry in March. In April, an immigration judgeruledthat the Trump administration could deport him for his beliefs, siding with an administration memo that Khalil’s “current or expected beliefs, statements or associations” were counter to US foreign policy interests.
But on Wednesday, a federal judgeruledthat the administration could no longer detain Khalil on that basis, but put his order on hold until Friday morning to allow the government to appeal.
In hisruling, Judge Michael E Farbiarz wrote: “The petitioner’s career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled – and this adds up to irreparable harm.”