Trump Official Struggles To Explain Why Activist Was Arrested, Says ‘Pro-Palestinian Activity’
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Troy Edgar offered dumbfounding responses when asked to explain why the Trump administration arrested a Columbia University graduate and is trying to deport him.
On Saturday, federal agents arrested 30-year-old Mahmoud Khalil at his university-owned home in front of his pregnant wife, who is a U.S. citizen. Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder who went to Columbia on a student visa, graduated from the school in December and helped organize some of the campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. He also acted as a mediator between demonstrators and the school. Currently, he is being held at a detention facility in Louisiana.
Khalil has not been charged with a crime. Instead, the Trump administration has said he engaged in activities that “align to Hamas,” the terrorist organization that controls Gaza and carried out the Oct. 7 attacks. However, the administration has cited no specific conduct despite revoking his green card, and with it, his status as a permanent lawful resident.
President Donald Trump vowed Khalil’s apprehension will be “the first arrest of many to come.”
NPR’s Michel Martin interviewed Edgar for Thursday’s Morning Edition, where the reporter asked for the reason behind Mahmoud’s arrest and looming deportation. After making vague allegations about “supporting terrorism,” Edgar arrived at “pro-Palestinian activity”:
MARTIN: So, what is the specific conduct the government alleges that Mr. Khalil engaged in that merits removal from the United States?
EDGAR: I think what you saw there is you’ve got somebody that has come into the country on a visa. And as he’s going through the visa process, he is coming in to basically be a student that is not going to be supporting terrorism. So, the issue is he was let into the country on this visa. He has been promoting this antisemitism activity at the university. And at this point, the State Department has revoked his visa for supporting a terrorist type organization. And we’re the enforcing agencies, so we’ve come in to basically arrest him.
MARTIN: A White House official told the Free Press that there’s no allegation that he broke any laws. So, again, I have to ask, what specifically constitutes terrorist activity that he was supporting? What exactly do you say he did?
EDGAR: Well, like I said, when you apply for a visa, you go through the process to be able to say that you’re here on a student visa, That doesn’t afford you all the rights of coming in and basically going through this process, agitating and supporting Hamas. So, at this point, yeah, the Secretary of State and the State Department maintains the right to revoke the visa, and that’s what they’ve done.
MARTIN: How did he support Hamas? Exactly what did he do?
EDGAR: Well, I think you can see it on TV, right? This is somebody that we’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.
Martin went on to ask if criticism of the government is a “deportable offense.”
“Let me put it this way, Michel,” Edgar replied. “Imagine if he came in and filled out the form and said, ‘I want a student visa.’ They asked him, ‘What are you going to do here?’ And he says, ‘I’m going to go and protest.’ We would have never let him into the country.”
As the protests were in full force last April, Khalil spoke with Wolf Blitzer of CNN and addressed concerns expressed by some Jewish students who said they felt unsafe on campus.
“I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined,” he said at the time. “They go hand in hand. Anti-Semitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement.”
