A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University is facing deportation following his arrest by federal immigration agents over the weekend.
Mahmoud Khalil, who graduated from the university in December, was arrested Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the arrest, saying it was a result of President Donald Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism. He has not been formally charged with a crime.
Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, said the agents who took him into custody at his home near Columbia initially claimed to be acting on a State Department order to revoke his student visa. But when Greer informed them that Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card, they said they would revoke that documentation instead.
Federal immigration authorities also visited a second international student at Columbia over the weekend and attempted to take her into custody but were prevented from entering the apartment, according to a union representing the student. The woman has not been identified, and it’s not clear what grounds ICE had for the visit.
According to the Student Workers of Columbia, a graduate student union representing the woman, three ICE agents visited her university-owned residence Friday night and attempted to enter without a warrant.
“The agents were rightfully turned away at the door,” the student union said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a message posted Sunday on X that the administration will be “revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported”.
Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students protesting the war in Gaza.
