Photo: Jeenah Moon/Reuters
On Saturday, Palestinian activist and former Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil, who played a significant role in the Gaza protests at Columbia last year, was arrested by federal immigration authorities. According to his attorney, Khalil is a legal permanent resident but is currently being detained despite his status. The dramatic action came just days after President Donald Trump signaled his administration’s plan to crack down on student protests — raising the specter of deportation for those in the country on a visa as well as the revocation of federal funds for the colleges and universities themselves. Khalil’s arrest has been condemned by many local political leaders and championed by members of Trump’s administration and its allies. Here’s what we know so far.
What happened?
On Saturday evening, Khalil was approached at his home by Department of Homeland Security agents. According to Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer, the agents proceeded to detain Khalil and threatened his wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant, with arrest as well. The apartment building where Khalil lives with his wife is owned by the university.
Greer told the Associated Press that one of the agents told her over the phone that they were following orders from the State Department to revoke Khalil’s student visa. When Greer told them that Khalil possessed a green card and was a legal permanent resident, the agent said they were revoking that instead.
According to Greer, Khalil’s family was told that he was transported to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, but they were later informed that he wasn’t there after an attempted visit. As of Monday, according to ICE’s online detainee locator, Khalil is being held at a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana,
“We will vigorously be pursuing Mahmoud’s rights in court, and will continue our efforts to right this terrible and inexcusable — and calculated — wrong committed against him,” Greer said.
Who is Mahmoud Khalil?
Khalil graduated from Columbia University in 2024 with a Master of Public Administration from its School of International and Public Affairs. He was a lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student-led coalition advocating for the school’s divestment from Israel. The group had come under fire for its on-campus protests of the ongoing war in Gaza, particularly their Gaza Solidarity Encampment that was subjected to numerous raids by local law enforcement last year.
Drop-Site News reports that Khalil participated in a sit-in at the Barnard College’s Milstein Center on Wednesday, protesting the school’s recent expulsion of several students for taking part in pro-Palestinian protests.
The AP also reports that Khalil had been under investigation by the Office of Institutional Equity, a newly created university office intended to address reports of harassment and discrimination, due to his involvement with CUAD.
“I have around 13 allegations against me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” Khalil told the AP. “They just want to show Congress and right-wing politicians that they’re doing something, regardless of the stakes for students,” he added. “It’s mainly an office to chill pro-Palestine speech.”
What has the Trump administration said?
Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, confirmed Khalil’s arrest in a statement, saying that it was done in coordination with the State Department and alleging that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
“ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security,” she said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed McLaughlin’s words on social media, making it clear that Khalil’s detention was an intentional move from the Trump administration. “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” he wrote, sharing a link to a news article about Khalil.
Trump denounced Khalil as a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” in a TruthSocial post Monday and said that there are more arrests 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,” he said.
What has the reaction been?
The New York Civil Liberties Union condemned Khalil’s arrest as an affront to his right to free speech. “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,” Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who is running in the New York City mayoral race, also called for Khalil’s immediate release, noting his arrest was a “blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump.”
Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington called Khalil’s detention “unacceptable,” and said it raised concerns about how much further the Trump administration could go. “Deporting legal residents solely for expressing their political opinions is a violation of free speech rights. Who’s next? Citizens?,” she wrote on X.
NBC News reports that protesters plan to hold a demonstration at New York City’s Federal Plaza on Monday, calling for Khalil’s release.
What about Khalil’s Green Card? Is it legal to detain him?
Though Rubio has stated that the United States will begin revoking green cards, his ability to do so appears legally dubious. Typically, an immigration judge is tasked with determining whether a person’s legal resident status can be revoked, following allegations of criminal activity or fraudulent activities in the application process. In a series of tweets on Bluesky, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, said that the State Department lacks the authority to unilaterally revoke a green card.
“While the State Department CAN revoke *visas* with very little legal process involved, stripping someone of a green card is done by DHS (not the State Department) and requires filing formal charges alleging a violation of immigration law and a removal hearing in front of an immigration judge,” he wrote.
However, Reichlin-Melnick noted that an aspect of the Immigration and Nationality Act could allow for a non-citizen to be deported if the Secretary of State deems them deportable on national security grounds.
Have any other activists been detained by the Trump administration?
It’s not yet clear if any other pro-Palestinian protesters have been similarly detained. But Khalil was reportedly not the only Columbia student that authorities sought out over the weekend. The Associated Press reports that federal immigration agents attempted to take an international student into custody, but weren’t able to enter her apartment. Student Workers of Columbia, a university union that represents the unidentified woman, told the outlet that the ICE agents attempted to enter her home without a warrant.
Last week, Trump indicated that going after campus activists is a top priority for his administration and that he intends to penalize the institutions themselves for allowing the demonstrations.
“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,” he wrote on TruthSocial.
On Friday, the Trump administration announced that it had cancelled $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia University, citing the school’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”
