The federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played an outstanding role in the protests against Israel at Columbia University, according to his lawyer.
Mahmoud Khalil was inside a residence owned by the University on Saturday night near the Manhattan de Columbia campus when several immigration and customs compliance agents entered their apartment and arrested him, said his lawyer, Amy Greer, to The Associated Press.
Greer said he spoke by phone with one of the ICE agents during the arrest, who said they were acting in the orders of the State Department of revoking the Khalil Student Visa. Informed by the lawyer Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they also revoked that, according to the lawyer.
The arrest seems to be among the first actions known under the promise of President Donald Trump to deport international students who joined the protests against the war in Gaza who swept the university campus the last spring. His administration has affirmed that participants lost their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization.
When ICE agents arrived at the Campus building on Saturday, they also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant, Greer said. The authorities refused to say why Khalil was being arrested, according to the lawyer.
Initially they were told that it was transferred to an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. But when Khalil’s wife tried to visit Sunday, he learned that he was not there, and could have been transferred as far as Louisiana, Greer said.
“We have not been able to obtain any more details about why it is being arrested,” Greer told the AP. “This is a clear climb. The administration is following its threats. “
In a statement to NBC News on Sunday, the spokeswoman of the National Security Department, Tricia McLaughlin, He said that Khalil was arrested in coordination with ICE and the State Department “in support of President Trump’s executive orders that prohibit anti -Semitism.”
“Khalil directed activities aligned with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” McLaughlin said.
A Columbia spokesman said that the law agents must produce a court order before entering the property of the university, but refused to say if the school had received one before Khalil’s arrest. The spokesman also refused to comment on Khalil’s arrest.
The messages looking for comments were left on Sunday with the State Department and ICE.
In a message shared on Sunday night, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said the administration “will revoke the visas and/or green cards of Hamas followers in the United States so that they can be deported.”
The DHS can initiate deportation procedures against green card holders for wide criminal activity, including support for a terrorist group. Ultimately, it would be an immigration judge to revoke someone’s permanent resident status, according to Camille Mackler, founder of Immigrant Arc, a coalition of legal service providers in New York.
“This has the appearance of a retaliation action against someone who expressed an opinion that the Trump administration did not like,” Mackler said.
Khalil served as a negotiator for the students, since they negotiated with the university officials during the end of the store of the store erected on the last spring campus, a role that made it one of the most visible activists in support of the movement.
He was also among those under investigation by a new office of the University of Columbia that has presented disciplinary positions against dozens of students for their pro-Palestinian activism, according to the records shared with the AP.
The investigations occur when the Trump administration has followed its threat of reducing hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to Columbia due to what the government describes how the failure of the Ivy League school to silence anti -Semitism on the campus.
The accusations of the University against Khalil focused on their participation in the disinterest group of the apartheid of the University of Columbia. He faced sanctions to potentially help organize an “unauthorized march event” in which participants glorified on October 7, 2023 of Hamas, attack and play a “substantial role” in the circulation of social networks that criticize Zionism, among other acts of alleged discrimination.
“I have about 13 accusations against me, most of them are publications on social networks with which it had nothing to do,” Khalil told the AP last week.
“They just want to show the politicians of Congress and right that they are doing something, regardless of the bets for students,” he added. “It is mainly an office to relax pro-palenin speech.”
