President Trump launched his attack on campus antisemitism with a stunning one-two punch at Columbia University, but warned Monday that the campaign to root out “pro-terrorist” activity in academia has only just begun.
The administration hit the Manhattan university over the weekend with a double whammy, first pulling $400 million in federal grant funding and then moving to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist who attended the school as a permanent U.S. resident on a green card.
Mr. Trump said Monday that the U.S. Immigration and Enforcement Action was “the first arrest of many to come.”
“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,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social. “Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
Leo Terrell, the Department of Justice senior counsel who leads the administration’s newly created Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, said Monday the crackdown at Columbia “should serve as a deterrent.”
“The task force is sending a message: The Trump administration and [Attorney General] Pam Bondi will not tolerate antisemitism on college campuses,” Mr. Terrell told Fox News Channel host Harris Faulkner.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin described Mr. Khalil as a former Columbia graduate student who “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
“ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security,” she said in an email.
Even so, the deportation move spurred an outcry from pro-Palestinian groups, free-speech advocates, and several congressional Democrats.
“Utterly outrageous. This is un-American,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, posted on X. “The forced disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil for nothing more than constitutionally protected speech is a clear assault on first amendment rights and a blatant act of authoritarianism.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the arrest “a blatant attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, immigration laws, and the very humanity of Palestinians,” adding that a legal challenge is in the works.
Columbia Interim President Katrina Armstrong said after the Sunday arrest that the university “has and will continue to follow the law.”
She said the funding cancellations would “touch nearly every corner of the University,” but insisted that the institution under her tenure has put teeth into disciplinary protocols that “previously existed only on paper.”
“I want to assure the entire Columbia community that we are committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns,” Ms. Armstrong said Friday in a statement. “To that end, Columbia can, and will, continue to take serious action toward combatting antisemitism on our campus. This is our number one priority.”
Even so, Columbia has continued to make headlines this year for anti-Israel protest mayhem. In January, four activists crashed the first day of the History of Modern Israel class, passing out fliers with antisemitic images and refusing repeated requests to leave.
Two students from Barnard College, Columbia’s affiliated women’s college, were expelled over the incident. A third student was expelled last week in relation to the May takeover of Hamilton Hall.
Four Columbia students were arrested and suspended last week for taking part in a pro-Palestinian protest against the expulsions at Barnard’s Milstein Library, according to ABC7 in New York City.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which is not recognized by the university, taunted Columbia officials after Mr. Khalil was arrested Saturday by federal agents at his apartment in a university-owned building near the campus.
“Columbia University has bent over backwards to satiate the Zionist death machine — brutalizing [its] own students, awarding former [Israeli] soldiers thousands of dollars after assaulting protestors, surveilling and shutting out the Harlem community — was it worth it?” asked the group on Instagram.
Dozens of major universities, including Columbia, Harvard and the University of California campuses, were flooded by anti-Israel protests after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, which prompted Israel to declare war.
The universities were accused of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment and threats, prompting multiple complaints to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights as well as lawsuits and a House investigation.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.