Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of media concerning the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia College in the course of the ongoing battle between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, in New York Metropolis, U.S., June 1, 2024.
Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters
On Saturday, Palestinian activist and former Columbia College grad pupil Mahmoud Khalil, who performed a major position within the Gaza protests at Columbia final 12 months, was arrested by federal immigration authorities. In line with his legal professional, Khalil is a authorized everlasting resident however is at the moment being detained regardless of his standing and no particular fees have been detailed. The dramatic motion got here simply days after President Donald Trump signaled his administration’s plan to crack down on pupil protests — elevating the specter of deportation for these within the nation on a visa in addition to the revocation of federal funds for the universities and universities themselves. Khalil’s arrest has been condemned by many native political leaders and championed by members of Trump’s administration and its allies. Right here’s what we all know up to now.
On Saturday night, Khalil was approached at his house by Division of Homeland Safety brokers. In line with Khalil’s legal professional, Amy Greer, the brokers proceeded to detain Khalil and threatened his spouse, an American citizen who’s eight months pregnant, with arrest as properly. The house constructing the place Khalil lives along with his spouse is owned by the college.
Greer informed the Related Press that one of many brokers informed her over the telephone that they had been following orders from the State Division to revoke Khalil’s pupil visa. When Greer informed them that Khalil possessed a inexperienced card and was a authorized everlasting resident, the agent stated they had been revoking that as an alternative.
In line with Greer, Khalil’s household was informed that he was transported to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, however they had been later knowledgeable that he wasn’t there after an tried go to. As of Monday, in response to ICE’s on-line detainee locator, Khalil is being held at a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana,
“We are going to vigorously be pursuing Mahmoud’s rights in courtroom, and can proceed our efforts to proper this horrible and inexcusable — and calculated — improper dedicated towards him,” Greer stated.
Khalil’s authorized group has since filed a habeas corpus petition and U.S. District Decide Jesse Furman, who was assigned the matter, has blocked Khalil’s elimination pending motion on the submitting. The choose has additionally ordered a listening to for Khalil’s case for Wednesday.
Khalil graduated from Columbia College in 2024 with a Grasp of Public Administration from its Faculty of Worldwide and Public Affairs. He was a lead negotiator for Columbia College Apartheid Divest, the student-led coalition advocating for the college’s divestment from Israel. The group had come beneath hearth for its on-campus protests of the continued conflict in Gaza, significantly their Gaza Solidarity Encampment that was subjected to quite a few raids by native regulation enforcement final 12 months.
Drop-Website Information reviews that Khalil participated in a sit-in on the Barnard Faculty’s Milstein Heart on Wednesday, protesting the college’s latest expulsion of a number of college students for participating in pro-Palestinian protests.
The AP additionally reviews that Khalil had been beneath investigation by the Workplace of Institutional Fairness, a newly created college workplace supposed to handle reviews of harassment and discrimination, resulting from his involvement with CUAD.
“I’ve round 13 allegations towards me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” Khalil informed the AP. “They only wish to present Congress and right-wing politicians that they’re doing one thing, whatever the stakes for college kids,” he added. “It’s primarily an workplace to relax pro-Palestine speech.”
Zeteo reported Monday that Khalil had emailed Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong final Friday with issues for his security after being subjected to a “vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing marketing campaign.”
“Their assaults have incited a wave of hate, together with requires my deportation and dying threats. I’ve outlined the broader context under, but Columbia has not offered any significant help or assets in response to this escalating menace,” he wrote, in response to emails obtained by the outlet.
To date, the Trump administration hasn’t articulated what fees, if any, that Khalil is being detained on. Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a press release, saying that it was completed in coordination with the State Division and alleging that Khalil “led actions aligned to Hamas, a chosen terrorist group.”
“ICE and the Division of State are dedicated to imposing President Trump’s govt orders and to defending U.S. nationwide safety,” she stated.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed McLaughlin’s phrases on social media, making it clear that Khalil’s detention was an intentional transfer from the Trump administration. “We shall be revoking the visas and/or inexperienced playing cards of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported,” he wrote, sharing a hyperlink to a information article about Khalil.
Trump denounced Khalil as a “Radical International Professional-Hamas Pupil” in a TruthSocial put up Monday and stated that there are extra arrests to return. “We all know there are extra college students at Columbia and different Universities throughout the Nation who’ve engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American exercise, and the Trump Administration won’t tolerate it,” he stated.
The New York Civil Liberties Union condemned Khalil’s arrest as an affront to his proper to free speech. “The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil — a inexperienced card holder finding out on this nation legally — is focused, retaliatory, and an excessive assault on his First Modification rights,” Govt Director Donna Lieberman stated in a assertion. Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who’s working within the New York Metropolis mayoral race, additionally known as for Khalil’s speedy launch, noting his arrest was a “blatant assault on the First Modification and an indication of advancing authoritarianism beneath Trump.”
Letitia James, the state legal professional basic, stated Monday that she is “extraordinarily involved” about Khalil’s arrest and detention and that her workplace is at the moment monitoring the scenario and can be in touch along with his authorized illustration.
Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex denounced Khalil’s detention and stated it raised issues about how a lot additional the Trump administration might go. “If the federal authorities can disappear a authorized US everlasting resident with out cause or warrant, then they’ll disappear US residents too. Anybody – left, proper, or middle – who has highlighted the significance of constitutional rights + free speech needs to be sounding the alarm now.,” she wrote on X.
NBC Information reviews that protesters plan to carry an indication at New York Metropolis’s Federal Plaza on Monday, calling for Khalil’s launch.
Although Rubio has said that america will start revoking inexperienced playing cards, his capacity to take action seems legally doubtful. Usually, an immigration choose is tasked with figuring out whether or not an individual’s authorized resident standing will be revoked, following allegations of prison exercise or fraudulent actions within the software course of. In a collection of tweets on Bluesky, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, stated that the State Division lacks the authority to unilaterally revoke a inexperienced card.
“Whereas the State Division CAN revoke *visas* with little or no authorized course of concerned, stripping somebody of a inexperienced card is finished by DHS (not the State Division) and requires submitting formal fees alleging a violation of immigration regulation and a elimination listening to in entrance of an immigration choose,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, Reichlin-Melnick famous that a facet of the Immigration and Nationality Act might enable for a non-citizen to be deported if the Secretary of State deems them deportable on nationwide safety grounds.
It’s not but clear if every other pro-Palestinian protesters have been equally detained. However Khalil was reportedly not the one Columbia pupil that authorities sought out over the weekend. The Related Press reviews that federal immigration brokers tried to take a global pupil into custody, however weren’t capable of enter her house. Pupil Staff of Columbia, a college union that represents the unidentified girl, informed the outlet that the ICE brokers tried to enter her house with no warrant.
Final week, Trump indicated that going after campus activists is a prime precedence for his administration and that he intends to penalize the establishments themselves for permitting the demonstrations.
“All Federal Funding will STOP for any Faculty, Faculty, or College that permits unlawful protests. Agitators shall be imprisoned/or completely despatched again to the nation from which they got here. American college students shall be completely expelled or, relying on the crime, arrested,” he wrote on TruthSocial.
On Friday, the Trump administration introduced that it had cancelled $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia College, citing the college’s “continued inaction within the face of persistent harassment of Jewish college students.”
