President Donald Trump warned Monday that the arrest and doable deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia College would be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations in opposition to Israel and the warfare in Gaza.
Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful U.S. resident who was a graduate pupil at Columbia till December, was detained Saturday by federal immigration brokers in New York and flown to an immigration jail in Louisiana.
The Division of Homeland Safety stated Khalil was taken into custody because of Trump’s govt orders prohibiting antisemitism. Khalil has not been charged with any crimes over his actions throughout campus unrest final yr on the college.
“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 in a social media submit. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
Khalil’s detention drew rapid outrage from civil rights teams and free speech advocates, who accused the administration of utilizing its immigration enforcement powers to squelch criticism of Israel.
“The Division of Homeland Safety’s lawless resolution to arrest him solely due to his peaceable anti-genocide activism represents a blatant assault on the First Modification’s assure of free speech, immigration legal guidelines, and the very humanity of Palestinians,” stated the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide Muslim civil rights advocacy group.
Federal immigration authorities additionally visited a second worldwide pupil at Columbia on Friday night and tried to take her into custody however weren’t allowed to enter the house, in keeping with a union representing the coed. The lady has not been recognized, and it’s not clear what grounds ICE had for the go to.
The Scholar Employees of Columbia, a graduate pupil union representing the lady, stated the three brokers didn’t have an arrest warrant and have been “rightfully turned away at the door.”
Khalil is the primary individual recognized to be detained for deportation below Trump’s promised crackdown on pupil protests.
Trump has argued that protesters forfeited their rights to stay within the nation by supporting the Palestinian group Hamas that controls Gaza. The U.S. has designated Hamas as a terrorist group.
Khalil and different pupil leaders of Columbia College Apartheid Divest have rejected claims of antisemitism, saying they’re a part of a broader anti-war motion that additionally consists of Jewish college students and teams. However the protest coalition, at occasions, has additionally voiced assist for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, one other Islamist group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group.
It’s unclear when Khalil could have a listening to in immigration court docket, which is often step one within the deportation course of. Spokespersons for ICE and DHS didn’t instantly present particulars about his case Monday.
Usually, expelling an individual who has everlasting residency within the U.S. requires a excessive bar, corresponding to that individual being convicted of sure forms of crimes.
Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian dad and mom and has an American citizen spouse who’s eight months pregnant, emerged as one of the crucial seen activists within the protests at Columbia.
He served as mediator on behalf of each pro-Palestinian activists and Muslim college students, a task that put him in direct contact with college leaders and the press — and drew consideration from pro-Israel activists, who in latest weeks referred to as on the Trump administration to deport him.
“He was the administrative interfacing person for any pro-Palestine group on campus that has been too scared to talk to the administration,” one other pupil protester, Maryam Alwan, informed The Related Press. “He took a public facing role, and now he’s being targeted for speaking to the media.”
Extra not too long ago, Khalil confronted investigation by a brand new disciplinary physique arrange at Columbia College.
The Workplace of Institutional Fairness despatched him a letter final month accusing him of probably violating a brand new harassment coverage by posting a message in a WhatsApp group referencing a “genocidal dean” who moderated a panel with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Khalil informed the AP final week that he served as a spokesperson for protesters however didn’t play a management position within the group’s decision-making or have something to do with its social media posts.
“They are alleging that I was the leader of CUAD or the social media person, which is very far from reality,” he stated, utilizing the acronym for the group Columbia College Apartheid Divest.
Khalil acquired a grasp’s diploma from Columbia’s Faculty of Worldwide and Public Affairs final semester. He beforehand graduated from the Lebanese American College in Beirut with a pc science diploma and labored on the British Embassy in Beirut’s Syria workplace, in keeping with his biography on the Society for Worldwide Growth’s web site.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in a message posted Sunday on X that the administration will likely be “revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
Columbia College declined to touch upon Khalil’s arrest over the weekend and in addition didn’t instantly reply Monday.
The Trump administration final week pulled $400 million in federal funding from Columbia due to what it claimed was the Ivy League college’s failure to rein in antisemitism on campus.
A protest was scheduled for later Monday in entrance of a federal workplace constructing in Manhattan.
