Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate at the center of a high-profile deportation fight with the US government over his pro-Palestinian views, personally responded to the government’s claims that he’s a threat to foreign policy for the first time in a sworn legal declaration unsealed Thursday.

The Columbia University student was detained in March by immigration agents and is being held at a facility in rural Jena, Louisiana.

Why should protesting this Israel government’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians result in the erosion of my constitutional rights?”