United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) have arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played a prominent role in last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at New York’s Columbia University, the student workers’ union said on Sunday.
The student, Mahmoud Khalil at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested at his university residence on Saturday, the Student Workers of Columbia union said in a statement.
Khalil’s wife is a US citizen and he has a permanent residency green card, the union said. He remained in detention on Sunday. Khalil’s wife declined to comment through one of Khalil’s fellow students.
Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press news agency that she spoke by phone with one of the ICE agents during the arrest, who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the lawyer that Khalil was in the country as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that too, according to the lawyer.
Greer said the authorities declined to tell Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, whether he was accused of committing a crime. 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.”
The arrest appeared to be among the first known actions under President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport international students who joined the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses last year. His administration has claimed participants forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas, which is designated as a ‘terror’ organisation by the US.
The move has been described as an attack on First Amendment freedoms.
Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin, has been one of the school administrators’ lead negotiators of the pro-Palestinian student protesters, some of whom set up a tent encampment on a Columbia lawn last year and seized control of an academic building for several hours in April before police entered the campus to arrest them. Khalil was not in the group that occupied the building but was a mediator between Columbia provosts and the protesters.
The protesting students called for Columbia’s divestment from companies with ties to Israel, a ceasefire and an end to the war that killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians and turned the enclave into rubble after nonstop bombardment. The US provided the bulk of the ammunition for the war.
Columbia said last year that it would consider expediting some of the students’ demands through its investments committee.
Rights groups have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza – home to 2.3 million people. Despite a ceasefire in place since January 19, Israel has blocked the entry of any aid into Gaza since March 1, drawing condemnation from rights groups and aid agencies.
The October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent Israeli military offensive on Gaza led to months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses.
At least 1,100 people were killed in the Hamas attack and some 240 people were taken captive. Most of the captives have been released as part of truce deals. A new round of truce talks will resume in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Monday.
Targeted by the government
A spokesperson for Columbia said the school was barred by law from sharing information about individual students.
The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, which oversees the country’s visa system, did not respond to questions from the news agencies. It was not immediately clear on what grounds ICE agents arrested Khalil. The ICE comes under the US Department of Homeland Security.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency a few hours before his arrest on Saturday about the Trump administration’s criticism of Columbia, Khalil said he was concerned that he was being targeted by the government for speaking to the media.
The Trump administration on Friday said it had cancelled government contracts and grants worth about $400m to Columbia University. The government said the cuts and the student deportation efforts are due to “anti-Semitic” harassment at and near Columbia’s Manhattan campus.
“What more can Columbia do to appease Congress or the government now?” Khalil said before his arrest, noting that Columbia had twice called in police to arrest protesters and had disciplined many pro-Palestinian students and staff, suspending some.
“They basically silenced anyone supporting Palestine on campus and this was not enough. Clearly, Trump is using the protesters as a scapegoat for his wider agenda [of] fighting and attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system.”
In response to the announced grant cuts on Friday, Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, said the school was committed to combating anti-Semitism and was “working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns”.
Protesting students have denied the charges of anti-Semitism.
‘This is only the beginning’
Maryam Alwan, a Palestinian American senior at Columbia who has protested alongside Khalil, said the Trump administration was dehumanising Palestinians.
“I am horrified for my dear friend Mahmoud, who is a legal resident, and I am horrified that this is only the beginning,” she said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that international students who support Hamas, which the US has designated a “terrorist” organisation, face visa revocation and deportation.
On Thursday, Columbia issued a revised protocol for how students and school staff should handle ICE agents seeking to enter private school property.
The school said ICE agents without a judicial arrest warrant may be allowed to enter its private property in “exigent circumstances”, which it did not specify.
“By allowing ICE on campus, Columbia is surrendering to the Trump administration’s assault on universities across the country and sacrificing international students to protect its finances,” the Student Workers of Columbia said in its statement.
Khalil lives in a university apartment building near Columbia’s main gated campus.
