First published 2026
Mahmoud Khalil was a Palestinian graduate student and legal resident living in New York City with his pregnant wife when ICE agents came for him. His offense was speaking out against the killing of Palestinians in Gaza at Columbia University. Khalil chronicles his journey from arrest to a Louisiana detention facility, where deportation loomed over him. He draws from his prison diary to expose the brutal conditions inside ICE detention centers, where inmates disappear without warning and families who visit risk their own deportation. Between accounts of daily survival and small acts of solidarity among prisoners, Khalil weaves the broader story of his family's displacement from Palestine to Syrian refugee camps, their escape from Assad's Syria to Lebanon, and their eventual arrival in America seeking safety. The book connects personal trauma with generational exile, showing how one man's activism triggered a confrontation with America's immigration system while his newborn son entered the world.
Genres: autobiography, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, current-affairs, social-justice
Vibes: harrowing, humanizing, intimate, thought-provoking, urgent
Tropes: diary-format, generational-trauma, personal-narrative, systemic-injustice
Setting: New York City, Louisiana, Gaza, Columbia University, Palestine, Syrian refugee camps, Syria, Lebanon, America
Period: 21st century, contemporary
208 pages · Hardcover · Metropolitan Books
Content warnings: racism, violence, war