Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested a Columbia University activist who helped lead a Palestinian solidarity encampment on campus last year, according to multiple outlets.
When authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a lead negotiator in discussions with university administration during pro-Palestinian protests on campus, they claimed they were acting in accordance with a State Department order.
When Khalil’s attorney Amy Greer informed the agents over the phone that Khalil had a student visa, they said it had been revoked by the State Department. Greer then informed the agents that Khalil, who graduated from Columbia in December, was a permanent resident with a green card, which they said had also been revoked.
The agents confronted Khalil and his wife as they entered their university-owned apartment block. They threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, a US citizen who is eight months pregnant, if she did not come to their flat, Zeteo reported, and Greer claims they refused to explain why her husband was detained. When Greer demanded to see a warrant for Khalil’s arrest, the agents hung up, according to Zeteo.
“We have not been able to get any more details about why he is being detained,” Greer told The Associated Press. “There is a clear escalation. “The administration is following through on its threats.”
Donald Trump issued an executive order in January targeting “Hamas sympathisers on college campuses.” The president has also threatened to revoke federal funding for universities that allow “illegal” protests.
Trump has targeted Columbia, withholding $400 million in funding, along with nine other universities that have had pro-Gaza encampments and protests. The Trump administration claims that these protests are anti-Semitic rather than First Amendment-protected demonstrations against a brutal assault on Gaza.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice,” Trump said in late January. “We will find and deport you. I will also immediately cancel all student visas for Hamas sympathisers on college campuses, which have become infested with radicalism like never before.”
Linda McMahon, Trump’s education secretary, said in a statement: “Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses — repeatedly overrun by antisemitic students and agitators.”
Columbia issued a public statement on Sunday admitting that “there have been reports of ICE around campus.”
“Columbia has and will continue to follow the law,” the statement read. “Consistent with our longstanding practice and the practice of cities and institutions throughout the country, law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including University buildings.”
The university recently published a new protocol for ICE agents’ visits, which it claims is consistent with previous practices. In 2016, Columbia’s provost stated that the university would withhold undocumented students’ information from immigration officials absent a subpoena and would prohibit immigration officials from entering campus without a warrant except in “areas open to the general public.”
When the Associated Press asked whether agents had a warrant when they arrested Khalil, a school spokesperson declined to comment. Greer said on Sunday that she does not know where Khalil is being held. She was told he had been sent to an ICE detention centre in Elizabeth, New Jersey, but when his wife tried to visit him, she was told he was not there, according to Zeteo’s Prem Thakker.
An Action Network petition demanding his release has resulted in nearly 200,000 letters to the government and university.
Greer told the Columbia Spectator, the university’s student newspaper, about Khalil’s family and friends’ reactions to his arrest, saying, “People are shocked and scared.”
