A student who played a significant role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York City last year has been detained by federal immigration officials, according to his lawyer. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, served as the lead student negotiator for the encampment at the university’s campus on the west side of Manhattan. His attorney, Amy Greer, informed the BBC that Mr. Khalil was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Saturday while he was inside his university-owned home.
Columbia University was the center of pro-Palestinian student protests last year, which were held nationwide in response to the war in Gaza and the United States’ support for Israel. The BBC has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and Columbia University for comments.
Ms. Greer stated that the ICE agents informed Mr. Khalil that his student visa had been revoked. However, she clarified that her client is a legal permanent resident with a green card and is married to an American citizen. Initially, they were informed that Mr. Khalil had been transferred to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. However, when his wife, who is eight months pregnant and was also threatened with arrest by ICE agents, tried to visit him, she was told he was not being held there. The lawyer is unsure of Mr. Khalil’s current location, but an online detainee locator search on the ICE website indicates that a Syrian-born individual named Mahmoud Khalil is being held at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility in New Jersey.
Ms. Greer stated that they had heard that Mr. Khalil could be transferred as far away as Louisiana, without providing further details. The lawyer described what happened to her client as a “terrible and inexcusable – and calculated – wrong.”
During the protests last summer, Mr. Khalil stated that he was leading negotiations with university administrators on behalf of the student protesters. They had set up a tent encampment on the university lawn to protest against the Gaza war. Some students also seized control of an academic building for several hours before police arrested them. Mr. Khalil was not part of that group. He later told the BBC that he had been temporarily suspended by the university, where he is a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.
Mr. Khalil’s detention follows President Donald Trump’s executive order in January, which warned that anyone involved in “pro-jihadist protests” and “all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses” would be deported. Some Jewish students at Columbia have claimed that the rhetoric at the demonstrations occasionally crossed the line into antisemitism, while other Jewish students on campus have joined the pro-Palestinian protests.
Last week, the Trump administration announced the revocation of $400 million (£310 million) in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to address antisemitism on campus. Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong stated in a campus-wide email on Friday that the cancellation of these funds would “immediately impact research and other critical functions of the University.”
The Israeli military launched its campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack into Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in approximately 1,200 deaths and 251 individuals being taken hostage. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military action.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q1pl1eldno
