A revelatory and powerful testament of protest, courage, and imprisonment in America’s deportation regime

A revelatory and powerful testament of protest, courage, and imprisonment in America's deportation regime 'Are you Mahmoud Khalil?' This was the question asked by ICE as they took the Palestinian student and U.S. legal resident from his pregnant wife and home in New York City, transported him across the country, and locked him up in a Louisiana detention camp under threat of deportation. His 'crime': exercising his right to free speech at Columbia University, where he emerged as a leading voice against the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. No Land to Stand On is his indelible account, the story of a man confronting the reality that he had become target number one in a lawless regime shredding basic rights. Drawing on his prison diary and writing in vivid, page-turning detail, Mahmoud Khalil conjures the despair and cruelty of ICE detention, where prisoners can vanish overnight and visiting families risk their own deportation. There is humanity, too, in the men's acts of care, as they help each other with documents, and make a prison cake for Mahmoud after he can only follow the birth of his son on a public payphone. In tandem, he tells the multi-generational story of a family expelled from Palestine to a Syrian refugee camp, of flight from Assad's regime to Lebanon, of arrival in an America that promised permanence and protection, and of the enduring struggle for Palestine. A work of immense courage and resistance, No Land to Stand On is a call to all of us to defend the inalienable right to safety, freedom, and a place to call home.

Details

ISBN13: 9781037410697
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 208
Edition:
Publication Date: 29 Sep 2026
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 21.6(H)x13.7(L)x1.6(W)224
Weight (gm): 224

Author Biography

Mahmoud Khalil is a Palestinian born in a refugee camp in Syria. He fled Assad's Syria at the age of 18 and holds Algerian citizenship. He studied computer science at the Lebanese American University while working with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, then served as programs manager at the British Embassy in Beirut. He moved to the United States in 2022 to attend Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, where he became a prominent figure during the student protests against the war on Gaza. Mahmoud lives in New York, where he continues to fight against the threat of deportation. No Land to Stand On is his first book.

Reviews

No Land to Stand On not only recounts, with chilling precision, an intimate experience of the free world's sinister new tyrannies, but it also describes a longer and ongoing ordeal of exile and ostracism. And yet, while troubling our consciences, Mahmoud Khalil opens our minds and hearts with his dignity, compassion and hopefulness. With its spiritual and intellectual power, his book is already a classic of dissident literature, a true peer of Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Hope Against Hope and Eugenia Ginzburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind -- Pankaj Mishra, author of The World After Gaza
A compelling and deeply human account of loss, longing, and resilience. Mahmoud Khalil's memoir bears witness to the human cost of capricious imprisonment on many ordinary, unseen lives . . . He reminds us that the greatest cost of imprisonment is not time itself, but the moments that can never be returned . . . This is an honest, tender witnessing. May it cross many walls -- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Khalil’s clear-eyed analysis, the clarity of his prose, and the strength of his character turn his devastating story into an extraordinary book that everyone should read. It is as terrifying about injustice as it is inspiring about resistance -- Kamila Shamsie, Women's Prize winning author of Home Fire
No Land to Stand On tells the story of a brave and decent man, persecuted for opposing the genocide of his people, by a government that practices sadism and deceit. It will be remembered as one of America's most important prison memoirs, a defining document of our age -- Peter Beinart, author of Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
Through his vivid, urgent and beautifully written story, Mahmoud Khalil lays bare the systems of power that rob us of our freedoms -- in Palestine, Syria, the United States and around the world. This book won't depress you -- it'll light a fire under you -- Mona Chalabi, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ten Lives
It is impossible not to think of history reading Mahmoud Khalil. This is not a memoir -- it is an indictment. The words have been written down, the deed, the date. No one will forget; we cannot afford to -- Fatima Bhutto, author of The Hour of the Wolf
At once achingly personal and politically urgent, No Land to Stand On explores how displacement reverberates across generations, offering a powerful testament to endurance in the face of forced statelessness -- Hala Alyan, author of Pultizer Prize-finalist I'll Tell You When I'm Home
Mahmoud Khalil's unassuming odyssey offers a rare chance to read history as it unfolds. At once intimate and political, this iconic chronicle shows that the deepest forces behind Palestinian political action are also the most universal: love, fatherhood, and faith -- Yasmin Zaher, Dylan Thomas Prize winning author of The Coin
An unflinching account of what it costs to insist on one's dignity . . . at once an intimate family story, an audit of America's immigration system's terrible machinery, and a document of what happens when a government tries to make an example of a man who refuses to trade freedom for survival -- susan abulhawa, author of Against the Loveless World
Mahmoud Khalil offers a perfect contrast between the barbarity of Palestinians' oppressors and the dignity of the Palestinian people themselves. This tale of courage in the face of unbelievable wickedness shows us the impact of policies determined to uproot the freedoms that we once enjoyed -- and shows us, in the life of one man and one family, the determination of the Palestinians not to be silenced -- Benjamin Moser, author of Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History