Watermelon Pictures announced on Thursday that its new documentary on the Columbia University pro-Palestinian student movement featuring now-detained graduate Mahmoud Khalil is set to be released later this month at a film festival in Denmark.
"The Encampments," which reportedly has been months in the making, provides insight into the history of Khalil's family and is scheduled to premiere at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival on March 25.
"The film ensures the students in (the) U.S and Gaza are heard, their actions are remembered, and the fight for Palestinian liberation continues," Grammy Award-winning rapper Macklemore, a co-producer, said in a statement.
Khalil, who is one of the film's main protagonists, was arrested last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities and remains detained at a facility in Louisiana as he fights the Trump administration's order to deport him from the United States.
A White House official who spoke with Axios said Khalil was arrested after the Department of Homeland Security found he was actively, but not materially, supporting Palestinian terror group Hamas.
Following his arrest, there have been several protests in support of Khalil around the country, including one in New York City's Federal Plaza on Monday.
In the film, Khalil explains how his grandparents became refugees, saying they were forced off their land during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.
"I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus in Syria," he says in the documentary. "My family's history in Palestine actually goes back as long as my grandparents can trace it."
One of the most visible activists in the Columbia demonstrations, Khalil is a Syrian national and a citizen of Algeria, according to ICE records.
He reportedly holds a master's degree in public administration after graduating from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in December and a green card after he married his wife, who is an American citizen.
The White House official told Axios that Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Khalil acted against U.S. foreign policy positions after receiving evidence from a DHS review.
Under U.S. law, the secretary of state is authorized to deport a green card holder if the person's presence will have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."
Green card holders can be deported from the U.S. for a number of reasons, including breaking the law, but Khalil has not been charged with a crime as of yet.
President Donald Trump promised earlier this week that Khalil's arrest will be the "first of many."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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