Agents from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played a prominent role in last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at New York’s Columbia University, four fellow students said on Sunday.
The student, Mahmoud Khalil at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents at his university residence on Saturday, said undergraduate student Maryam Alwan and three other students who asked not to be identified, citing fears of reprisals.
Khalil has been one of the negotiators with school administrators on behalf of the pro-Palestinian student protesters, who set up a tent encampment on a Columbia lawn last year.
Khalil’s detention appears to be one of the first efforts by Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, to fulfill his promise to seek the deportation of some foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement. The October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled U.S. college campuses.
A spokesperson for Columbia said the school was barred by law from sharing information about individual students.
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State, which oversees the country’s visa system, did not respond to questions.
In an interview with Reuters a few hours before his arrest on Saturday, Khalil said he was concerned that he was being targeted by the government and some conservative pro-Israel groups for speaking to the media.
The Trump administration on Friday said it had canceled government contracts and grants awarded to Columbia University worth about $400 million. The government said the cuts and the student deportation efforts are because of antisemitic harassment at and near Columbia’s Manhattan campus.
“What more can Columbia do to appease Congress or the government now?” Khalil said before his arrest, noting that Columbia had twice called in police to arrest protesters and had disciplined many pro-Palestinian students and staff, suspending some. “They basically silenced anyone supporting Palestine on campus and this was not enough. Clearly Trump is using the protesters as a scapegoat for his wider agenda fighting and attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system.”
Alwan, a Columbia senior who has protested alongside Khalil, said the Trump administration was dehumanizing Palestinians.
“I am horrified for my dear friend Mahmoud, who is a legal resident, and I am horrified that this is only the beginning,” she said.
It was not immediately clear on what grounds the DHS agents detained Khalil, whose wife is American, and he remained in custody on Sunday, students said.
REUTERS
