ICE Detains Palestinian Grad Student at Columbia After Trump’s Threat to Universities That Allow ‘Illegal Protests’
Ted Shaffrey/AP photo
A former Columbia University student and figurehead of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus has been detained after federal agents raided his home — less than a week after President Donald Trump threatened to cut off federal funding for colleges that host “illegal protests.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian grad student at Columbia, was taken into custody Saturday night after ICE agents reportedly entered his university-owned apartment.
Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press she spoke by phone to one of the agents during the arrest, who informed her that they were acting on State Department orders to cancel his student visa. When she told them he was a permanent resident of the U.S., the agent said they were revoking his green card instead.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a statement to the AP on Sunday, saying it was orchestrated “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”
The DHS’ official X account also posted that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
Khalil’s arrest comes less than a week after Trump warned in a Truth Social post that there should be “no masks” at university protests and that “agitators” will be “imprisoned” or deported to “the country from which they came.”
“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he wrote.
Trump also signed an executive order back in January that demanded “all available and appropriate legal tools” to target perpetrators behind “unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence,” much of it stemming from protests centered on the Israel-Hamas war.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” the executive order stated.
