The federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian activist on Saturday, who played an outstanding role in the protests of Columbia University against Israel, a significant escalation in the commitment of the Trump government to capture and deport student activists.
Mahmoud Khalil, a doctoral student in Columbia, was in his apartment in the university ownership on Saturday evening until last December, when several agents came for immigration and customs authorities (ICE) and took him into custody, his lawyer Amy Greer announced the Associated Press.
Greer said she spoke to one of the ICE agents by phone during the arrest who said that they had to revoke Khalil’s student visa to the instructions of the Foreign Ministry. The lawyer informed the representative that Khalil was a constant resident in the USA with a green card, and instead revoked this, according to the lawyer.
Tricia McLaughlin, spokesman for the Ministry of Homeland Protection, confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a statement on Sunday and described it as “to support President Trump’s executive regulations, which ban anti -Semitism”.
Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised procedure against students who joined protests against the Israel Hamas War in Gaza, who won campus in college last spring. The administration claimed that the participants have decreased their right to stay in the country by supporting Hamas.
McLaughlin signaled that the arrest was directly connected to Khalil’s role in the protests and claimed that he had “led activities that led to Hamas, a proven terrorist organization”.
When Ice Agents arrived in Khalil’s residence in Manhattan on Saturday evening, they also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, an American citizen who is eighth month pregnant, said Greer.
Lawyer, Ms. does not know Khalils current location
Khalil’s lawyer said they were first informed that he was held in an immigration facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, but when his wife tried to visit on Sunday, she learned that he was not there. Greer said she still doesn’t know Khalil’s whereabouts from Sunday evening.
“We couldn’t get any further details about why he was arrested,” Greer told the AP. “This is a clear escalation. The administration pursues its threats.”
A spokesman for Columbia University said that law enforcement officers had to make an arrest warrant before entering the property of the university, but it declined to say whether the school had received one before Khalil’s arrest. The spokesman rejected it to comment on Khalil’s detention.
In a message divided on Sunday evening, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the government would revoke the visa and/or green maps of the Hamas supporters in America so that they can be deported “.
The Department of Homeland Security can initiate the deportation process against Green Card holder for a wide range of alleged criminal activities, including the support of a terrorist group. According to immigration experts, the detention of a legal inhabitant who was not charged because of a crime was an extraordinary step with an unsafe legal basis.
Arrested because he expressed an opinion “
“This has the appearance of a retaliation against someone who spoke an opinion that the Trump government did not like,” said Camille Mackler, founder of Immigrant ARC, a coalition of legal service providers in New York.
Khalil, who received his master’s degree at the Columbia School of International Affairs in the past semester, served as a negotiator for students when they were fooled by university officials at the end of the tent camp built last spring.
The role made him one of the most visible activists to support the movement and has arranged calls from pro-Israel activists in the past few weeks so that the Trump administration against him began with the deportation procedure.
Khalil was also to investigate a new office at the University of Columbia, which was raised against dozens of students against dozens of students because of its Pro-Palestinian activism.
The investigation is carried out when the Trump government pursued its threat to hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce financial resources to Columbia, since the government is the failure to suppress anti -Semitism on campus when the failure of the Ivy League describes.
The allegations of the university against Khalil focused on his participation in the Apartheid Salvary Group at Columbia University. He looked at sanctions because he may have contributed to organizing a “non -authorized Marsching event” in which the participants are accused of having to glorify Hamas on October 7, 2023 and playing a “essential role” in the spread of social media posts that criticize Zionism, including a suspected discrimination.
“I have about 13 allegations against myself, most of them are social media posts with which I had nothing to do,” said Khalil of the Associated Press last week.
“They only want to show the congress and right -wing politicians that they do something, regardless of the missions for students,” he added. “It is mainly an office to cool Pro-Palestine speech.”
