Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil said the Trump administration had not curbed the pro-Palestinian voices after its release from more than three months in immigration detention.
“My presence is a message,” he told the BBC after returning to New Jersey from a Louisiana detention center. “All these attempts to suppress the voices of Palestinian parents are now failing.”
Halil was a prominent voice in pro-Palestinian protests at New York University last year, and his March 8 arrest sparked demonstrations in New York and Washington, D.C.
The US government wants to deport him, claiming that his activities are detrimental to foreign policy interests.
Speaking Saturday at the airport in New Jersey, New Jersey, Halil vowed to continue defending Palestinian rights and the rights of immigrants who are jailed in Louisiana.
He accused the White House of “trying to dehumanize those who disagree with the administration.”
He embraced the flowers he had given him by his supporters, and cried out “Free Palestine” as he finished his remarks. When he and his wife put up a press conference, he was carrying his baby son, who was born while he was in prison, and pushing the pram.
Halil was joined by New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and his release showed that the Trump administration was losing the legal battle to deport American immigrants in defending Palestinians.
“The Trump administration knows they're having a legal battle where they lost,” she said.
“They are violating the law, they know they are violating the law, and they are trying to use these one-off examples to intimidate everyone else.”
Mr Halil's remarks come the day after a judge ordered him to be released from prison after he determined that he was not a flight risk or threat to his community while the immigration process continues.
The Trump administration has sought a lawsuit against his release as it continues to make efforts to remove him from the United States.