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A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.
Mahmoud Khalil was at his university-owned apartment, blocks from the private Ivy League university’s main campus in New York when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.
One of the agents told Greer by phone that they were executing a state department order to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil, who graduated last December, was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that too, according to the lawyer.
The arrest comes as Donald Trump vows to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” involved in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The administration has placed particular scrutiny on Columbia, announcing Friday that it would be cutting $400m in grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the elite school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.
The authorities declined to tell Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, why he was being detained, Greer said. Khalil has since been transferred to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
“We have not been able to get any more details about why he is being detained,” Greer told the AP. “This is a clear escalation. The administration is following through on its threats.”
A spokesperson for Columbia said law enforcement agents must produce a warrant before entering university property. The spokesperson declined to say if the school had received a warrant for Khalil’s arrest.
Messages seeking comment were left with the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and Ice.
Khalil had become one of the most visible faces of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia. As students erected tents on campus last spring, Khalil was picked to serve as a negotiator on behalf of students and met frequently with university administrators.
When classes resumed in September, he told the Associated Press that the protests would continue: “As long as Columbia continues to invest and to benefit from Israeli apartheid, the students will continue to resist.”
An immigration court can revoke a green card but government departments do not have that power.
Last week it was reported by Axios that Secretary of State Marco Rubio intends to revoke visas from foreign nationals who are deemed to support Hamas or other terrorist groups, using artificial intelligence (AI) to pick out individuals.
Khalil was among several investigated by a newly-created university disciplinary committee – the Office of Institutional Equity – looking into students at the institution who have expressed criticism of Israel, according to records shared with the AP.
In recent weeks, the committee has sent notices to dozens of students for activities ranging from sharing social media posts in support of Palestinian people to joining “unauthorized” protests.
“I have around 13 allegations against me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” Khalil said last week.
After refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Khalil said the university threatened to block him from graduating. But when he appealed the decision through a lawyer, they eventually backed down, Khalil said.
“They just want to show Congress and rightwing politicians that they’re doing something, regardless of the stakes for students,” Khalil said. “It’s mainly an office to chill pro-Palestine speech.”
Columbia students kick-started the tent encampment protests at their Manhattan campus last spring, with the idea catching on at dozens of campuses across the US. At Columbia and many other colleges, their academic administrations called in the relevant local police department and hundreds of students were arrested.
