EXCLUSIVE: Lawyer for Mahmoud Khalil reveals how he won his freedom

After being abducted from his New York apartment building by plainclothes agents and locked away in an ICE jail in Louisiana for over 100 days, Mahmoud Khalil has been freed and reunited with his family. A federal judge ruled that Khalil’s detention was unconstitutional and that he was neither a flight risk nor a threat to the public, and the Syrian-born Palestinian activist, husband, father, and former Columbia University graduate student was finally released on June 20, 2025. But the fight for Khalil’s freedom is not over, and we have by no means seen the last of the Trump administration’s authoritarian attacks on immigrants, universities, and the movement to stop Israel’s US-backed genocide of Palestinians. In this exclusive interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Amy Greer, an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis and a member of Mahmoud Khalil's legal team, about the epic legal battle to free Khalil.

Guest:

• Amy Greer is an associate attorney at Dratel & Lewis, and a member of Mahmoud Khalil's legal team. Greer is a lawyer and archivist by training, and an advocate and storyteller by nature. As an attorney at Dratel & Lewis, she works on a variety of cases, including international extradition, RICO, terrorism, and drug trafficking. She previously served as an assistant public defender on a remote island in Alaska, defending people charged with misdemeanors, and as a research and writing attorney on capital habeas cases with clients who have been sentenced to death.

Additional resources:

• Mahmoud Khalil arrest video
• ACLU Press Release (June 20, 2025): Mahmoud Khalil to be freed from detention, reunite with wife and son as case proceeds
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “‘A tremendous chilling effect’: Columbia students describe dystopian reality on campus amid Trump attacks”

Credits:

• Studio Production / Post-Production: David Hebden

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