President Donald Trump and his administration have defended detaining activist Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests, after arresting him Saturday night—days after the Trump administration stripped funding from the university and the president publicly threatened to arrest anyone who participates in “illegal protests” on college campuses.
Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University ... [+]
Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead Columbia’s protests, was arrested by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his university-owned residence Saturday night, his attorney Amy Greer told the Associated Press.
Greer was told by ICE agents that Khalil had been detained because of orders from the State Department to revoke his student visa—which he doesn’t have, as he’s in the U.S. as a permanent resident—but when the lawyer said the activist was in the U.S. on a green card rather than a student visa, ICE agents said they would instead revoke his green card, Greer told the AP.
Trump confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a Truth Social post Monday, calling the protester “a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and saying his detainment was “the first arrest of many to come.”
ICE agents also threatened Khalil’s pregnant wife with arrest, Greer said in a statement to NY1 Sunday, with the AP noting authorities declined to tell his wife whether the activist was charged with a crime.
Khalil was born in Syria, according to the record of his detention on ICE’s website, and served as a key negotiator between students and university officials regarding the end of protesters’ tent encampment on Columbia’s campus last year, with the AP noting he was one of only a few students involved with the protests who publicly shared their name and identity.
His arrest comes days after the Trump administration announced it was pulling $400 million in federal funding from Columbia over the university’s purported failure to combat the pro-Palestinian protests, which critics decried for antisemitic incidents, with the Education Department citing the “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, saying his administration “will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.” “If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here,” the president said.
Greer was initially told that Khalil was being held in at a detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which ICE records confirmed as of Sunday afternoon. In an updated statement to NY1, the lawyer said that when his wife tried to visit him in Elizabeth, she was told he was not there, and it was unclear where Khalil was being detained. ICE records now show the activist is being detained at a facility in Jena, Louisiana.
Columbia said Sunday it was aware of “reports of ICE around campus” and the school is “follow[ing] the law,” noting its policy is that “law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including University buildings”—though the school declined to tell the AP whether a warrant had been granted regarding Khalil’s arrest. In an updated statement Sunday, the university added that it is “committed to the legal rights of our students and urge all members of the community to be respectful of those rights.”
In addition to Trump’s statement on Truth Social, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Khalil’s arrest on X Sunday, claiming the activist “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization” and saying ICE and the State Department “are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio also doubled down in support of Khalil’s arrest Sunday evening, writing on X, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” Prior to Khalil’s arrest, Trump threatened last week that “all federal funding will STOP for any College, School or University that allows illegal protests.” “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. “American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!” (The White House has not provided clarity on what would constitute an “illegal protest,” given the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.)
Khalil’s arrest has drawn widespread criticism from civil rights and free speech groups, with Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, calling the arrest “genuinely shocking.” “Arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes,” Jaffer said in a statement, accusing the Trump administration of “run[ing]
Federal immigration law allows the government to revoke a permanent resident’s green card and immigration status if they’ve been convicted of certain crimes, including crimes of “moral turpitude” or that are subject to more than one year in prison, drug crimes, domestic violence, firearm convictions, falsely claiming citizenship, documents fraud, among other offenses. The Trump administration’s statement claiming Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas” suggests the federal government could also use a provision allowing green cards to be revoked for anyone that “engages in terrorist activity,” though there is no evidence of Khalil doing anything beyond protesting. In a statement on Khalil’s arrest to The Columbia Spectator, DHS also cited Trump’s executive order announcing measures to combat purported antisemitism on college campuses. That order—the legality of which has not yet been tested in court—directs universities to “monitor for and report” instances of purported antisemitism among immigrant students and staff, which the order notes could “lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
The Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights organization dedicated to combating antisemitism, issued a statement late Sunday strongly supporting the Trump administration for arresting Khalil. “We appreciate the Trump Administration's broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism — and this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions,” the organization wrote on X.
Prior to his arrest, Khalil was reportedly one of several students that Columbia was investigating internally over their role in the pro-Palestinian protests, the AP reported last week. Khalil told the AP that the school had levied approximately 13 allegations against him, which he claimed were primarily for “social media posts that I had nothing to do with.” Khalil said Columbia had also threatened to block his transcript and stop him from graduating after he refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement, before his attorney appealed the decision. Columbia “just want[s] to show Congress and right-wing politicians that they’re doing something, regardless of the stakes for students,” Khalil told the AP, describing the investigations as efforts “to chill pro-Palestine speech.”
Unrest may be rising again at Columbia over how the school is responding to its pro-Palestinian activists. The AP reported in late February that protesters demanding “amnesty” for those disciplined for pro-Palestinian protests had forced their way into a building at Barnard College—an all-female liberal arts college within Columbia—and allegedly assaulted a school employee. Student-led group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said on X that public safety officials had “HARASSED AND SHOVED SEVERAL STUDENTS, KNOCKING AT LEAST ONE TO THE GROUND.” “WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET,” the student group posted on Feb. 26, announcing a series of demonstrations and other protest actions at the school in the weeks since.
Columbia was the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian protests that took place on college campuses last year, leading to a widely publicized clash between university leadership and activists. Student activists occupied university buildings and created a tent encampment on the school’s campus that resulted in action from the New York Police Department and Columbia suspending students who refused to disburse. Columbia president Minouche Shafik later resigned from her position in August—one of several university leaders who stepped down amid the protests—saying her tenure had been “a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.” Republicans have harshly criticized the protests as fueling antisemitism on college campuses, and a Columbia University task force said in an August report that Jewish students at the school had felt “ostracized” on the school’s campus amid the demonstrations and felt their concerns were being ignored by school officials. In addition to the action by the Trump administration, the Republican-led House Education Committee sent a letter in February to Columbia’s president and trustees chastising the school for its alleged “failure to address the pervasive antisemitism that persists on campus” and demanding documents related to the protests.