His lawyers say that a prominent Palestinian activist who leads the Columbia University student camp movement was arrested Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who allegedly acted under State Department orders to cancel his green card.
Mahmoud Khalil was in an apartment owned by the university. Several Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents entered the building and were taken into custody when they blocked them from the main campus of Private Ivy League University in New York, his lawyer, Amy Greer, told The Associated Press.
One of the agents told Greer over the phone that he was implementing a State Department order to revoke Khalil’s student visa. The lawyer informed him that Halil, who graduated last December, was in the US as a permanent resident with a green card, and the lawyer said the agent had also revoked that.
The arrest comes as Donald Trump vows to deport foreign students and imprison “asgitators” involved in protesting Israeli war in Gaza.
The administration has been undergoing special scrutiny on Colombia, and on Friday announced it would cut grants and contracts by $400 million as the government explains it had not curbed anti-Semitism on campus.
Authorities refused to tell Halil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, why he was in custody, Greer said. Halil was then transferred to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
“We couldn’t get any more details on why he was in custody,” Greer told the Associated Press. “This is a clear escalation. The administration is chasing that threat.”
A Columbia spokesperson said law enforcement must prepare a warrant before it enters university property. The spokesman refused to say whether the school had received a warrant for Khalil’s arrest.
Messages seeking comment remained at the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE.
Halil has become one of the most visible faces of the pro-Palestinian movement in Colombia. When students built their tents on campus last spring, Halil was chosen to work as a negotiator on behalf of the students, and frequently met with university administrators.
When classes resumed in September, he told The Associated Press that protests continued. “As long as Colombia continues to invest and benefits from Israeli apartheid, students will continue to resist.”
The immigration court can revoke the green card, but the government department does not have that authority.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was reported by Axios that he intends to revoke visas from foreigners deemed to support Hamas and other terrorist groups to use artificial intelligence (AI) to select individuals.
Khalil was among several who investigated students from the institution, where the newly created University Disciplinary Committee (the institution’s Equity Committee) expressed criticism of Israel, according to records shared with the Associated Press.
Over the past few weeks, the committee has sent dozens of notifications to dozens of students, from sharing social media posts supporting Palestinians to participating in “fraudulent” protests.
“I have about 13 allegations against me. Most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” Halil said last week.
After refusing to sign a private agreement, Halil said the university threatened to block him from graduating. However, when he appealed the decision through his lawyers, they ultimately retreated, Halil said.
“They just want to show Congress and right-wing politicians that they’re doing something regardless of their interests for the students,” Halil said. “It’s an office that cools speeches primarily from pro-Palestinians.”
Columbia students launched a tent protest on their Manhattan campus last spring. The idea ran on dozens of campuses in the United States. Columbia and many other universities have been called out at associated local police stations and hundreds of students have been arrested.
“Targeting student activists is a humiliation against the rights of Mahmoud Khalil and his family. This blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America. What’s more, Halil and everyone living in the United States are given a legitimate process. Murad Awaude, president and CEO of New York Immigration, in a statement Sunday afternoon, shows that the green card was revoked only by immigration judges, once again showing that the Trump administration is willing to instill fear and promote a racist agenda.
“DHS has to release Khalil immediately,” he said.
