Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, whose arrest by federal immigration agents for his involvement in organizing pro-Palestinian protests touched off a firestorm of criticism, is being detained in Louisiana, according to public records.
Khalil, 30, a green card holder who is legally in the U.S. as a permanent resident, is believed to be the first person targeted by the Trump administration in its pledge to deport international students who protested against Israel’s actions in Gaza. Trump warned Monday the arrest was “the first arrest of many to come.”
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again,”
During Khalil’s Saturday arrest at his university-owned residence near the Morningside Heights campus, Department of Homeland Security agents claimed the State Department had revoked his student visa. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement online database on Monday logged that he was being detained more than 1,000 miles from the city at a processing center in Jena, La.
Neither Trump nor ICE has provided information about what laws Khali is alleged to have broken. Khalil played a prominent role in organizing student protests last year opposing Israel’s war on Gaza, serving as a negotiator between students and university officials.
Following his arrest, federal authorities initially communicated that Khalil would be detained in Elizabeth, N.J., but he was not there when his wife visited the facility Sunday, his lawyer, Amy Greer, previously told the Daily News.
Greer told the agents who arrested him over the phone that he was a green card holder, and they said that would instead be revoked, as opposed to the student visa they cited. Khalil’s wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant, was also threatened.
The government’s detention and planned deportation of a lawful resident on ideological grounds has alarmed civil rights advocates, who have warned it presents a frightening precedent akin to Cold War-era exclusions and deportations carried out to suppress dissent.
Greer, who has filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of Khalil’s detention, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. The News also sent inquiries to representatives for DHS.
The Trump administration has framed any opposition to Israel’s military activities in Gaza as support for Hamas, which the U.S. and many countries designate as a terrorist group. Israel’s military campaign was a responjse to the Oct. 7 terror attacks engineered by Hamas.
Addressing Khalil’s arrest Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a statement on X, said, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
The arrest followed an announcement by the Trump administration Friday of more than $400 million in cuts to federal grants and contracts to Columbia for what it described as the college’s failure to address antisemitism.
Khalil, a master’s graduate from Columbia’s School of International Affairs, was born in Syria. His detention has led to an outcry from civil rights groups, legal scholars, and international students at Columbia, with demonstrations expected Monday afternoon. It’s illegal for federal immigration authorities to seize someone’s green card without due process, with the process typically playing out in court before an immigration judge.
“The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil — a green card holder studying in this country legally — is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights,” the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement Sunday.
“The unlawful detention of Mr. Khalil reeks of McCarthyism. It’s clear that the Trump administration is selectively punishing Mr. Khalil for expressing views that aren’t MAGA-approved — which is a frightening escalation of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, and an aggressive abuse of immigration law.”
Columbia has declined to confirm whether the agents produced a warrant before entering the campus property and arresting Khalil, as is required by law.
A committee at the Ivy League university has investigated him and other students who criticized the Israeli regime, leading to dozens of students facing disciplinary charges, according to reporting in The Associated Press. The committee scrutinized his work for the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group.
In an interview with The AP weeks before his arrest, Khalil told the outlet the committee had levied 13 allegations against him, mainly relating to social media posts he said he was uninvolved in.
“They just want to show Congress and right-wing politicians that they’re doing something, regardless of the stakes for students,” he said. “It’s mainly an office to chill pro-Palestine speech.”
Columbia on Monday announced new restrictions for alums at the college campus, limiting students’ access to the north College Walk pedestrian gates at Broadway near 116th St. and Amsterdam Ave near 116th St., and the Wien Gate on 116th St. between Amsterdam Ave. and Morningside Drive.
Students can also enter the campus on 120th St. near Broadway, but not alumni or guests, according to a statement posted on Columbia’s website, which added that students should anticipate “longer than normal waits” and the presence of public safety guards.
With news wire services
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