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One Haunting Friday Afternoon in an American Courthouse - Slate
If you needed a gauge for how abnormal this moment has become in American courts, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark last Friday was a good place to start.
The first thing I noticed was how overwhelmed the court staff appeared. I’ve come to this building before, but I had never seen the federal courthouse like this. People poked their heads up from the security station, trying to get a glimpse of the long line of broadcast cameras on tripods that had already formed, ready to go, even though the day’s biggest hearing wasn’t scheduled to begin for another hour. Across the river, in Manhattan, the federal courthouse’s security might have been more prepared for a case like this. But not here. Soon, strips of painter’s tape came out to affix our press badges to each device not allowed in to try to keep track of everyone’s property amid the chaos.
By the time I made it through the checkpoint, the main courtroom was nearly full. I slipped in just before the doors closed. Outside, a crowd of protesters was chanting “Free Mahmoud Now.” Inside, you couldn’t hear them; the courtroom was still. But there was clearly anxiety in the air.
The person at the center of it all—Mahmoud Khalil—wasn’t even in the room.
Khalil, a permanent legal resident, had suddenly been whisked away by federal agents with barely any justification at all several weeks ago. In the video of his arrest, he appeared calm, perhaps performatively so, for the sake of his wife, who was recording it. She was eight months pregnant at the time. She was there Friday, two rows ahead of me, and for a while, all eyes seemed to be on her.
The first thing I noticed was how overwhelmed the court staff appeared. I’ve come to this building before, but I had never seen the federal courthouse like this. People poked their heads up from the security station, trying to get a glimpse of the long line of broadcast cameras on tripods that had already formed, ready to go, even though the day’s biggest hearing wasn’t scheduled to begin for another hour. Across the river, in Manhattan, the federal courthouse’s security might have been more prepared for a case like this. But not here. Soon, strips of painter’s tape came out to affix our press badges to each device not allowed in to try to keep track of everyone’s property amid the chaos.
By the time I made it through the checkpoint, the main courtroom was nearly full. I slipped in just before the doors closed. Outside, a crowd of protesters was chanting “Free Mahmoud Now.” Inside, you couldn’t hear them; the courtroom was still. But there was clearly anxiety in the air.
The person at the center of it all—Mahmoud Khalil—wasn’t even in the room.
Khalil, a permanent legal resident, had suddenly been whisked away by federal agents with barely any justification at all several weeks ago. In the video of his arrest, he appeared calm, perhaps performatively so, for the sake of his wife, who was recording it. She was eight months pregnant at the time. She was there Friday, two rows ahead of me, and for a while, all eyes seemed to be on her.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/03/donald-trump-news-mahmoud-khalil-deportations.html
