Immediate and Unconditional Freedom for Mahmoud Khalil!
Socialists Without Borders
We repudiate the persecution of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian-Syrian student and activist at Columbia University. His case is not isolated. It is the logical expression of a capitalist-imperialist system that surveils and punishes dissent; and protects its ideological borders with the same violence that it uses to enforce its physical ones. It is yet another example of how the U.S. government—under both Democratic and Republican administrations—arbitrarily uses immigration laws and financial control over universities to maintain imperial domination and class control, especially when challenged by the voices of the oppressed.
The repression of Khalil serves the empire
The truth is that Khalil, a legal resident married to a U.S. citizen, is being persecuted not for breaking the law, but for denouncing the crimes of Israel and the U.S. against the Palestinian people. Khalil has not made antisemitic statements; rather, he joined the millions around the world who condemn the massacres in Palestine.
For the capitalist-imperialist system, the truth is intolerable. The U.S. demands ideological conformity to sustain its global order, especially repressing resistance from immigrants, oppressed minorities, and the working class. The attempt to deport Khalil has nothing to do with “national security” or “fraud”, as the U.S. State Department claimed. It is about silencing dissent that defies the official narrative. The same state that arms violent regimes abroad silences those who denounce them at home.
Democratic rights under capitalism are never guaranteed
We fight to defend and expand every liberty won in the past, including freedom of speech, academic freedom, and human rights—supposed hallmarks of liberal democracy. But under capitalism, these ideals are conditional privileges, subject to their utility to capital. For immigrant students and workers, these freedoms disappear when they contradict the dominant order.
Universities are not neutral
Where are the universities? Shouldn’t they, as institutions, protect their students? The answer is clear: they are not neutral. They are integrated into the capitalist state, and their core function is to reproduce the conditions that sustain inequalities inherent to capitalist exploitation. Their role is to shape a labor force aligned with the system, conforming under the illusion of pseudo-freedom.
Universities serve the ruling class, forming alliances with private corporations and state entities to pursue research projects that can eventually be commercialized—even military projects. When students like Khalil challenge this arrangement, universities respond with silence or complicity. Columbia and UPenn lost funding under Trump, not for defending human rights, but because their students became visible in the ideological struggle. The institutions didn’t resist—they surrendered, leaving their students alone to face state repression.
State violence as class discipline
Khalil was transferred to a remote ICE facility in Louisiana, far from his pregnant wife, his lawyer, and his community. This is a deliberate tactic of isolation, part of a strategy to break his will and send a message.
This is how the capitalist state operates—not with open debate, but with state terror and fragmentation. Khalil is treated the same as workers, union members, and all who contest power. This is not an exception—it’s a warning.
The path forward: class struggle and solidarity
The liberal response settles for minor reforms, some institutional support, or simple moral condemnation. But that’s not enough. We don’t need kinder laws; we need a different system. One that does not rely on imperial power, racial violence, or exploitation.
The way forward is through class organization from below. Students must unite with workers, immigrants, and anti-imperialist movements. Universities must become centers of resistance, not just with symbolic protests, but through material actions: strikes, occupations, divestment campaigns, and global solidarity.
Immediate and unconditional freedom for Mahmoud Khalil!
Rehire every worker fired for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people!
Defeat state repression and the criminalization of protest!
Stop the genocide against the Palestinian people!