According to his lawyers, federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played a major role in the protests against Israel at Columbia University.
Mahmoud Khalil was living in a university residence near the Manhattan campus in Columbia on Saturday night when several immigrants and customs law enforcement officers entered his apartment and detained him and told him, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.
Greer said she spoke to one of the Icefield agents by phone during her arrest, who said they were acting on the State Department orders to revoke Harrier’s student visa. The lawyer said the lawyer told the lawyer that Khalil was a permanent resident of the green card in the United States, and according to the lawyer, they were revoking that.
The arrest appears to be one of the earliest known actions President Donald Trump has pledged to expel international students, joining the Gaza protests that swept the university campus last spring. His administration claims that participants lost their right to stay in the country by supporting the terrorist group Hamas.
Greer said they also threatened to arrest Harrier’s wife, who was eight months pregnant when Icefield agents arrived at the campus building on Saturday. The lawyer said authorities refused to say why Khalil was arrested.
He was initially told that he was transferred to an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. But when his wife tried to visit Sunday, she learned that he wasn’t there – probably had been transferred to Louisiana.
“We can’t get more details about why he was detained,” Greer told the Associated Press. “This is a clear escalation. The government is following its threat.”
A Columbia spokesman said law enforcement officers must develop an arrest warrant before entering university property, but refused to say whether the school received a warrant before Khalil was arrested. The spokesman also declined to comment on Harrier’s detention.
News seeking comments was published Sunday with the State Department, Homeland Security and Ice Bureau.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a message shared on Sunday night that the government “will revoke visas and/or green cards from U.S. Hamas supporters in order to deport them.”
The Department of Homeland Security can initiate deportation procedures against green card holders for a wide range of criminal activities, including supporting terrorist organizations. Camille Mackler, founder of the New York State Alliance of Legal Service Providers, said that an immigration judge will eventually revoke someone’s permanent resident status.
“It seems to be a retaliation against people who don’t like the Trump administration,” McCler said.
Khalil served as a negotiator for students, who bargained with university officials, ending the end of a tent camp erected on campus last spring, making him one of the most visible activists supporting the movement.
He was also among the people being investigated by the New Columbia University office, which filed disciplinary charges against dozens of students, according to records shared with the Associated Press.
The investigation is because the Trump administration follows its threat to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Colombia, which is because the administration describes the reason why Ivy League schools fail to reject anti-Semitism on campus.
The university’s allegations against Khalil are focused on his involvement in the Columbia University’s Apartheid Deprivation Group. He faces sanctions because they have the potential to help organize “unauthorized parades” in which participants Honor Hamas attacked and played a “substantial role” in the circulation of social media posts criticizing Zionism, as well as other alleged discrimination.
“I have about 13 charges against me, most of which are social media posts that I have nothing to do with me,” Khalil told the Associated Press last week.
“They just want to show Congress and right-wing politicians that they are doing something regardless of the student’s stake,” he added. “It’s mostly relaxing the office of Plasteen’s speech.”
