Three years ago, I arrived in the United States, a graduate student carrying a hopeful vision of a nation built on freedom. I came to study at Columbia University, drawn by the promise of open discourse and the right to advocate for what I believed in without fear.
That vision shattered on March 8, 2025. Plainclothes ICE agents, driving unmarked cars, seized me from the lobby of my New York apartment building. I was flown to a federal detention center in Louisiana, without a warrant, without explanation.
As a green card holder, with a U.S. citizen wife eight months pregnant, the shock was profound. My crime? Speaking out in support of Palestinian rights, protesting the allocation of my tuition and taxes. I was targeted for my lawful, constitutionally protected speech.
The following 104 days felt like a lifetime, spent as a political prisoner. My liberty was stolen, not for any transgression of the law, but for the audacity of my beliefs. I missed the birth of my first child, a loss that echoed the injustice of my detention.
When I challenged my detention, arguing that my views posed no legitimate threat, the government responded with fabricated accusations. They alleged fraud on my green card application – a claim invented to justify their actions, not based on evidence.
Newly revealed court documents show the Department of Homeland Security itself confirmed, just one day before my arrest, that my application was complete, truthful, and correct. Yet, I was arrested anyway, a chilling demonstration of power and retribution.
I wasn’t alone. Other students and scholars, with valid immigration status, faced similar targeting. Masked agents apprehended them on the streets, outside their homes, even during citizenship appointments – all for expressing dissenting views.
This is precisely what the First Amendment safeguards against: the government dictating acceptable speech. Weakening this protection puts everyone at risk, eroding the very foundation of our democracy.
Eighty years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed that the First Amendment protects all within our borders – citizens and non-citizens alike – from government persecution based on belief. Allowing violations for non-citizens, or under the guise of foreign policy, establishes a dangerous precedent.
The argument has been made that supporting Palestine constitutes a foreign policy threat, that I deserve deportation simply for my ideas. If the government can silence a lawful permanent resident with a U.S. citizen family, who is safe?
The government has no right to control our thoughts or our speech. My legal team, and those representing others in similar cases, successfully argued this in court, securing our release from detention. But my case remains ongoing, and deportation still looms.
I ask Americans: do you want to live in a country where you can be abducted for your opinions? Where plainclothes agents operate without warrants, silencing dissent with impunity?
I grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria under Assad’s regime, where such actions were commonplace. I never imagined I would encounter them again, in the United States – a nation founded on the principles of freedom and justice.
Since 2025, the U.S. has witnessed a disturbing rise in these tactics: warrantless abductions, detention for expressing unpopular views, and the systematic silencing of dissent. This is a betrayal of the values this country claims to uphold.
I will continue to advocate for human rights in Palestine. But I implore everyone to defend our First Amendment rights. The freedom to speak our minds, regardless of who holds power, is the cornerstone of our democracy, and it is now gravely threatened.
Regardless of your views on Palestine, or on me, that foundation belongs to us all. Its preservation is not a matter of political alignment, but of safeguarding the very essence of what it means to be American.
