NEW YORK – President Donald Trump warned on Monday that the arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University would be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations against Israel and the Gaza war.
Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful US resident and graduate student at Columbia until December, was detained by federal immigration agents in New York on Saturday and flown to an immigration jail in Louisiana.
“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,” Trump wrote on a social media site. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
However, a federal judge in New York City ordered Monday that Khalil not be deported while the court considered a legal challenge filed by his lawyers. The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Civil rights organizations and free speech advocates expressed outrage over Khalil’s detention, accusing the administration of using immigration enforcement powers to silence criticism of Israel.
He is the first person known to have been detained for deportation as part of Trump’s promised crackdown on student protests.
According to a union representing the student, federal immigration officials also paid a visit to a second international student at Columbia on Friday evening and attempted to arrest her but were denied entry into her apartment.
Khalil, 30, had not been charged with any crime as a result of his activism, but Trump has claimed that protesters forfeited their right to remain in the country by demonstrating support for Hamas, the Palestinian group that attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. The United States has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Khalil and other Columbia University Apartheid Divest student leaders have denied antisemitic allegations, claiming to be part of a larger anti-war movement that includes Jewish students and organizations. However, the protest coalition has occasionally expressed support for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Islamist organization designated by the United States as a terrorist group.
Immigration agents arrest Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests
According to AP correspondent Julie Walker, immigration agents have arrested a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University.
The US Education Department warned 60 colleges, including Harvard and Cornell, on Monday that they risk losing federal funding if they fail to uphold antisemitism civil rights laws and ensure “uninterrupted access” to campus facilities and educational opportunities. The Trump administration has already pulled $400 million from Columbia.
A group of Columbia faculty members expressed concern on Monday that Khalil’s detention was intended to suppress free speech by students and staff who are not US citizens.
“The attack on Mahmoud Khalil is intended to make them quake in their boots, and to make us all quake in our boots,” said Michael Thaddeus, a math professor at Columbia. “Our message to Washington is that we are not silenced, we are not afraid, and we stand together, determined to defeat this ongoing assault on our fundamental rights.”
In their legal complaint, Khalil’s lawyers accused the government of retaliating against him for his “constitutionally protected advocacy on behalf of Palestinian human rights.”
Typically, the government must meet a higher standard to expel a person with permanent residency in the United States, such as proving someone has been convicted of a serious crime.
Khalil was born in Syria to Palestinian parents and moved to the United States in 2022 to attend Columbia. He later married an American citizen, who is now eight months pregnant.
Khalil rose to prominence as a mediator between pro-Palestinian activists and Muslim students during large protests at Columbia last year. That role put him in direct contact with university leaders and the press, and it drew the attention of pro-Israel activists, who have recently called on the Trump administration to deport him.
“He took a public-facing role, and now he is being targeted for speaking to the media,” Maryam Alwan, another student protester, told the Associated Press.
More recently, Khalil was investigated by a new disciplinary body established at Columbia University, which sent him a letter last month accusing him of potentially violating a new harassment policy by calling a school official a “genocidal dean” online.
Last week, Khalil told The Associated Press that he acted as a spokesperson for protesters but did not assume leadership.
“They are claiming that I was the leader of CUAD or the social media person, which is very far from the truth,” he said, using the acronym for Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
Khalil earned his master’s degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs last semester. According to his biography on the Society for International Development website, he previously earned a computer science degree from the Lebanese American University in Beirut and worked at the British Embassy in Beirut’s Syria office.
On Monday, a few hundred protesters rallied near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Manhattan, demanding Khalil’s release.
“By arresting Mahmoud, Trump thinks he can strip us of our rights and our commitment to our people,” Ibtihal Malley, a New York University student, told the audience. “To that we say: You are wrong.”
Back on campus, Columbia sophomore Pearson Lund was among those who were concerned about the potential denial of Khalil’s green card.
As he entered campus through a security line guarded by city police officers, the physics student asked, “At what point does this process stop?”