New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated the Islamic holy month of Ramadan by hosting dinner for Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by federal immigration officers last year following his activism as a student leader at Columbia University amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The Muslim mayor invited the anti-Israel protester to break bread at his official residence on Sunday.
“Last night, as we marked the one year anniversary of his detention, Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, Noor, and their son Deen to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together,” Mamdani posted on X late Monday. “Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and he belongs in New York City.”
Khalil was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March 2025 for his active role in anti-Israel protests at Columbia and alleged support for Hamas. The Trump administration deemed his activism detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.
Following his release from detention in June 2025, Khalil still faces a legal challenge over whether he gets to remain in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security claims he committed fraud on his green card application by not disclosing his work with the British Embassy and the United Nations. Pending a court ruling on the matter, federal law enforcement plans to detain Khalil again and deport him to Algeria, where the activist holds citizenship.
Mamdani recounted the experience Khalil went through last year, characterizing it as one of “profound hardship.” But in the face of adversity, Mamdani said, Khalil showed “profound courage.”
“A year ago, Mahmoud was walking home through our city after sharing an iftar with his wife Noor when he was detained by federal agents, flown to Louisiana, and then held in an ICE facility for months,” the mayor wrote in the post. “In that time, he was forced to miss the birth of his first child. All of this for exercising his First Amendment rights in protesting the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
“And yet, even in the face of that cruelty, there has also been beauty. New Yorkers raising their voices in solidarity. A city refusing to look away. Mahmoud won his freedom, and a father was finally reunited with his child.”
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Khalil described the uncertainty over the past year’s events as “torture.”
“I literally cannot plan anything. Whatsoever,” he said. “A piece of furniture we cannot buy right now because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The ongoing legal limbo has prevented him from getting a regular job, as he does not know what will happen next. Instead of work, he spends his time writing a memoir for future publication.
The dinner came the day an anti-Islam protest led by Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6, 2021, rioter who had led a similar protest in Minneapolis in January. Two Pennsylvania teenagers joined a counterprotest and allegedly threw two bombs into the crowd. The New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the two suspects had cited inspiration from the Islamic State group.
COLUMBIA STUDENT RELEASED FROM ICE DETENTION AFTER TRUMP-MAMDANI MEETING
Before and after becoming mayor, Mamdani has been a vocal advocate on behalf of Khalil. While meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House late last month, Mamdani provided a list of names of college students who had been detained in New York. By handing the list to Trump, the mayor asked for his help in dismissing the cases of those particular students. Among the students was Khalil.
After the meeting, Trump agreed to free Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva from detention and called Mamdani to tell him the news. The student was arrested because her “student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes,” the DHS said. Despite her release, Aghayeva’s deportation case remains active.
