Mayor Zohran Mamdani hosted controversial anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil, his wife and their young son for dinner at Gracie Mansion on Sunday for the holy month of Ramadan.
“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 wrote in a Monday Instagram post.
The mayor included a photo of the celebration, showing his wife, Rama Duwaji, holding a plate of food while standing next to a seated Khalil, who was enjoying his meal.
Khalil, a Syrian-born activist and former Columbia University grad student, was arrested by ICE early last year, and faces deportation after the Trump administration accused him of committing fraud on his green card application.
The Trump administration, which claims Khalil is a Hamas supporter, is using a rarely deployed statute that allows for noncitizens to be deported if their beliefs can pose a threat to US foreign policy interests.
“For Mahmoud Khalil, this past year has been marked by profound hardship—and by profound courage,” Mamdani wrote in the Monday social media post.
“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,” the mayor continued.
Khalil’s son, the couple’s first child, was born while he was stuck in ICE custody several states away last year. The tot will turn one on April 21.
“Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and he belongs in New York City,” Hizzoner declared
Mamdani has been a vocal defender of Khalil, who spent three months in a Louisiana federal lockup before a three-judge panel in New Jersey ruled in June that he should have been allowed to work through the immigration process.
“I see this attack on him as part of a larger attack on the freedom of speech that is especially pronounced when it comes to the use of that speech to stand up for policy to human rights,” the mayor said at an unrelated press conference in January.
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