ICE Arrests Palestinian Student Activist Who Helped Lead Columbia University Protests

Mahmoud Khalil, student activist, was detained by immigration enforcement on Saturday night. Agents said his student visa and green card were revoked.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested a Columbia University activist who helped lead the Palestinian solidarity encampment on campus last year, multiple outlets reported. Authorities claimed to be responding to a State Department order when they arrested Mahmoud Khalil, who was a lead negotiator in discussions with university administration during pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

During the arrest that took place on Saturday evening, when Khalil’s attorney Amy Greer told the agents over the phone that Khalil had a student visa, they said it was revoked by the State Department. Greer then told the agents Khalil, who graduated from Columbia in December, was a permanent resident who held a green card, they said that was also revoked.

The agents confronted Khalil and his wife as they entered their apartment building, which is owned by the university. They threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, if she didn’t go to their apartment, Zeteo reported, and, according to Greer, they refused to tell her why her husband was being detained. When Greer demanded to see a warrant for Khalil’s arrest, the agents hung up on her, according to Zeteo.

“We have not been able to get any more details about why he is being detained,” Greer told The Associated Press. “This is a clear escalation. The administration is following through on its threats.”

Donald Trump signed an executive order in January targeting what he described as “Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.” The president has also threatened to revoke federal funding from universities that allow what he called “illegal” protests.

Trump has attacked Columbia, pulling $400 million in funding, alongside nine other universities that had pro-Gaza encampments and protests. The Trump administration claims these protests are antisemitic rather than First Amendment-protected rallies 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 you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

Trump’s secretary of education, Linda McMahon, 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 released 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 said. “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 visits by ICE agents, which it says aligns with past practices. In 2016, Columbia’s provost stated that the university would hold back undocumented students’ information from immigration officials without a subpoena and would prohibit immigration officials from setting foot on campus without a warrant except in “areas open to the general public.”

When the AP asked whether agents had a warrant when they arrested Khalil, a school spokesperson declined to answer. Khalil appears to be held at a detention center in Elizabeth, N.J. An Action Network petition demanding his release has sent nearly 200,000 letters to the government and university.

When speaking to the Columbia Spectator, the university’s student paper, about how Khalil’s family and friends have reacted to his arrest, Greer said, “People are shocked and scared.”

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