The Nevada Green Party condemns the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil and calls for his immediate release and return to his family.
Khalil’s arrest and detention sets a dangerous precedent and heralds the erosion of American’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Furthermore, it is an act of hostility towards Americans who oppose increased global militarization, the killing of innocent civilians, children, and families, and the increased appropriation of federal tax revenues towards such militarization at the expense of other domestic and global priorities.
Nevada Green Party Co-Chair Margery Hanson responded to an invitation for comment with the following poem by Emma Lazarus, from
the bottom of the Statue of Liberty:
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Hanson added, referencing the poem, “That is America, not this.”
