President Donald Trump promised final week to spherical up the “agitators” liable for “unlawful protests” on faculty campuses. Over the weekend, his administration claimed its first scalp: Mahmoud Khalil, a lead negotiator for pro-Palestinian protest camp at Columbia College.
Plainclothes brokers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed up at Khalil’s college lodging on Saturday night time and detained him, claiming that his scholar visa was being revoked. When Khalil’s pregnant American spouse confirmed the brokers that he had a everlasting residency somewhat than a scholar visa, “one agent was visibly confused and mentioned on the cellphone, ‘He has a inexperienced card,'” in response to a press launch by Writers Towards the Conflict on Gaza.
The ICE brokers then advised Khalil’s legal professional, Amy Greer, over the cellphone that his inexperienced card was additionally being revoked, Greer advised the Related Press. Greer, who has filed a habeas corpus petition, couldn’t discover out the place Khalil was being detained. ICE brokers initially mentioned Khalil was being despatched to a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, however his spouse visited the middle and was advised that Khalil was not there, Greer advised CNN.
ICE’s on-line detainee locator signifies that Khalil is at the moment being held within the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Middle. Greer’s legislation agency, Dratel & Lewis, didn’t instantly reply to a follow-up request for remark from Motive.
“On March 9, 2025, in assist of President Trump’s government orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Division of State, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia College graduate scholar. Khalil led actions aligned to Hamas, a chosen terrorist group,” the Division of Homeland Safety posted on X.
Just some days earlier than his detention, the AP quoted Khalil in an article about Columbia College’s new Workplace of Institutional Fairness. The workplace, which was set as much as combat “disciminatory harassment,” has targeted closely on pro-Palestinian protesters. Khalil advised the AP that the workplace tried to place his commencement on maintain due to “round 13 allegations towards me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” however backed off when his lawyer obtained concerned.
The Columbia Jewish Alumni Affiliation, a corporation fashioned in response to the scholar protests, referred to as Khalil a “ringleader of the chaos” on campus and praised the choice to detain him. Teams of pro-Israeli alumni have been attempting to get pro-Palestinian activists deported for a number of months, reviews The Intercept.
In fact, lots of the college students truly charged with crimes over the protests have been U.S. residents who could not be deported. Though Khalil didn’t take part within the notorious scholar occupation of campus buildings in April 2024, he was a spokesman and mediator for the scholar protesters, Al Jazeera reviews. A month later, college students arrange a brand new protest encampment throughout alumni reunion. Motive spoke with Khalil at that encampment.
“The tent massacres in Rafah, utilizing American-made weapons, have impacted Palestinian college students an amazing deal, and we have now heard nothing from the college, no condemnation, no expressions of care, silence from the college,” he advised a gaggle of reporters. “We have now gathered peacefully in group to grieve and really feel protected with one another.”
In a beforehand unreported interview, Khalil additionally advised Motive about his life story. “I used to be born in a refugee camp in southern Damascus. My grandparents have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine in 1948,” he mentioned. “They stayed within the closest camp to Palestine, and so they lived and died in that refugee camp.”
As Syria fell into civil conflict, Khalil moved to neighboring Lebanon. He labored as an area supervisor for 2 British authorities applications, the Chevening Scholarship and the Battle, Stability, and Safety Fund, in response to his LinkedIn profile. In 2023, he enrolled in a grasp’s program at Columbia’s Faculty of Worldwide Public Affairs.
Khalil advised Motive that he was not anxious concerning the political repercussions of being such a high-profile activist, as a result of he wasn’t planning to return to Lebanon and Syria. Nor was he anxious about how it will have an effect on his profession prospects in America, as a result of “I would not work for an establishment that does not worth Palestinian lives. So if they do not need to make use of somebody who’s standing for Palestine, that is my achieve,” he mentioned.
The prospect that he is likely to be arrested by the U.S. authorities appeared so distant that it did not come up.
It is not clear precisely which authorized authorities the Trump administration used to revoke Khalil’s inexperienced card, nor how that can maintain up in court docket. The Division of Homeland Safety didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Neither is it clear the place Khalil could be deported. Palestinian refugees and their descendants can not acquire Syrian or Lebanese citizenship, solely residency. Complicating the case much more, Al Jazeera reported that Khalil has Algerian citizenship. The Algerian embassy in Washington didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Rounding up “a authorized everlasting resident who has not been charged with a criminal offense marked a rare transfer with an unsure authorized basis,” the AP reviews. Civil libertarians argue that it is clearly unconstitutional.
“The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a inexperienced card holder finding out on this nation legally—is focused, retaliatory, and an excessive assault on his First Modification rights,” the New York Civil Liberties Union Govt Director Donna Lieberman declared in a assertion. “Ripping a scholar from their dwelling, difficult their immigration standing, and detaining them solely primarily based on political viewpoint will chill scholar speech and advocacy throughout campus. Political speech ought to by no means be a foundation of punishment, or result in deportation.”
