Pascal has become one of the most recognised faces on TV, appearing in Game of Thrones, The Last of Us and Narcos [Getty]
A-list Hollywood star Pedro Pascal has voiced support for Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student who is facing deportation from the US for protesting Israel’s war on Gaza.
Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University, was detained by immigration agents this week at his Manhattan apartment in connection with his campus activism in support of Palestinians.
He is now facing deportation from the country despite holding a permanent residency Green Card, amid a crackdown by President Trump’s administration on pro-Palestine protests.
In a show of support for Khalil, the award-winning Chilean-American actor, who starred in Games of Thrones and The Last of Us, shared and ‘liked’ a video on Instagram of a protest demanding his immediate release.
The footage shows hundreds of demonstrators protesting against his arrest in New York. Protesters waved Palestinian flags and held signs supporting Khalil, the Palestinian cause, and free speech on campus.
Khalil, an Algerian citizen who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, was one of the most prominent activists involved in the pro-Palestine protests that swept Columbia University last year.
Since his arrest, he has been held at a ‘black site’ – a clandestine detention centre – in Louisiana and denied access to his lawyer.
It comes in the wake of an executive order issued by the president in January encouraging federal authorities to crack down on what it described as “antisemitic harassment and violence” in schools and universities.
Under the measures, Trump has vowed to deport “Hamas sympathisers” and revoke the visas of students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza.
Following his detention, Trump said that Khalil will be the “first of many arrests to come” and threatened to “find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathisers” from the country.
A US court has temporarily blocked federal immigration authorities from deporting him while it considers whether his arrest violates the constitution.
Khalil’s lawyers argue his arrest was in retaliation for his advocacy against Israel’s brutal military attack on Gaza, which killed over 61,000 Palestinians, and violates his right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The Department of Homeland Security has alleged that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization” but has not accused him of committing any crimes.
