 "Activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested Saturday night at his university-owned apartment. AP")
A prominent Palestinian activist who led the protests at Columbia University last year was arrested by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Saturday night. The lawyer of activist Mahmoud Khalil said that during the arrest, ICE officials claimed they were acting on a State Department order to revoke Khalil’s green card. Khalil was at his university-owned apartment when ICE agents entered the building and took him into custody.
His lawyer, Amy Geer, told the Associated Press that one of the agents called her and conveyed that they were executing a State Department order to revoke Khalil’s student visa. The pro-Palestinian activist graduated from an Ivy League college in December last year and was a green card holder.
The arrest came days after US President Donald Trump vowed to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” who took part in what he described as “pro-Hamas” protests across several US campuses.
The administration scrutinised Columbia and its students’ role in the whole saga. As a result, on Friday, the Trump administration announced that they 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 .
Khalil’s pregnant wife was unaware of the arrest
Geer told the Associated Press that the ICE agents declined to tell Khalil’s wife why he was being detained. The activist’s wife is eight months pregnant. The lawyer 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 Associated Press.
“This is a clear escalation. The administration is following through on its threats," she added. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Columbia University made it clear that law enforcement officials must produce a warrant before entering the university premises. However, he declined to comment on whether such a warrant was received by the university for Khalil’s arrest.
Khalil became one of the most prominent faces of protest in the university when hundreds of students erected tents on campus and conducted an encampment movement in the famous Hamilton Hall. Khalil was eventually picked to serve as a negotiator on behalf of students and met frequently with university administrators.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsWhen the classes resumed in September, he told the Associated Press that the pro-Palestinian protests would continue on the university premises. “As long as Columbia continues to invest and to benefit from Israeli apartheid, the students will continue to resist," he said at that time.
It is important to note that in the United States, an immigration court can revoke someone’s green card, but a government department does not have the same power. Last week, Axios reported 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.
With inputs from The Associated Press.