Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel activist at Columbia University that the Trump administration is seeking to deport, is encouraging students at the university to carry on with pro-Palestinian protests on campus, after he was detained by ICE for his involvement in coordinating those demonstrations.

Khalil published an op-ed in the Columbia Spectator student newspaper on Friday as dictated to his lawyer from a detention center in Louisiana. He calls his ICE arrest an “abduction.” 

“It is incumbent upon each of you to reclaim the University and join the student movement to carry forward the work of the past year,” he wrote.

The Trump administration canceled $400 million in federal funding to the university last month after Columbia failed to take action to protect Jewish students. Columbia acquiesced to the Trump administration, agreeing to a list of demands in an effort to restore the funding.

“Since my abduction on March 8, the intimidation and kidnapping of international students who stand for Palestine has only accelerated,” Khalil wrote in the essay, “A Letter to Columbia.”

Khalil was taken into custody by immigration authorities on March 8, with federal officials saying he led activities on campus “aligned to Hamas.”

Khalil entered the U.S. on a student visa in December 2022 and obtained his green card in November 2024, according to the DOJ.

His attorneys argue his detention is a violation of his due process and First Amendment rights. But the DOJ contends free speech doesn’t protect actions that conflict with U.S. foreign policy.

The federal government says it has evidence that Khalil actively supported Hamas, although he has not been found to have provided material support to the Palestinian terror group. The Department of Justice alleged that Khalil omitted his past work for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other organizations when applying to become a permanent U.S. resident last year.

“It is black-letter law that misrepresentations in this context are not protected speech,” a DOJ’s court filing states. “Thus, Khalil’s First Amendment allegations are a red herring, and there is an independent basis to justify removal sufficient to foreclose Khalil’s constitutional claim here.”

Khalil wrote in his op-ed of other students who are facing deportation for allegedly engaging in activities in support of Hamas, including Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, who co-authored an essay in the Tufts University student newspaper that called on the university to label Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.”

Khalil wrote that Öztürk and others have been “snatched by the state.”

“The situation is oddly reminiscent of when I fled the brutality of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and sought refuge in Lebanon,” Khalil said.

As of last month, the State Department had revoked 300 or more student visas, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

“No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card,” Rubio said.