ICE Arrested Legal U.S. Resident Who Protested the Genocide of Palestinians at Columbia

Mahmoud Khalil, who is Palestinian, was arrested and detained by ICE in front of his wife, who is eight months pregnant, on Saturday. The State Department has accused him of “activities aligned to Hamas."

By Kylie Cheung | March 10, 2025 | 12:39pm

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ICE Arrested Legal U.S. Resident Who Protested the Genocide of Palestinians at Columbia

On Saturday evening, following reports of ICE agents in Columbia University student housing, recent graduate Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in front of his wife, who is eight months pregnant. During Khalil’s time as a student at Columbia, he was a vocal pro-Palestine student activist and leading figure in organizing student encampments to protest Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Columbia’s ties to Israel. Khalil served as a key negotiator with the university during the encampment protests last spring, which drew horrific police violence sanctioned by the university.

ICE officers approached Khalil and his wife, who is an American citizen, at the entrance of their student housing building around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. The agents reportedly told Khalil, who is Palestinian and graduated in December, that the State Department had revoked his student visa, even though Khalil has a green card and is a legal resident. His wife went to their apartment to retrieve his green card, while Khalil put his lawyer, Amy Greer, on the phone and tried to have the agents speak to her. The agents claimed Khalil’s green card had been revoked, too. When Greer tried to ask why Khalil was being detained, if the agents had a warrant, and also repeated that he has a green card, the agents hung up.

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Zeteo News reported that one of the agents showed what he claimed to be a warrant on his cell phone, but Khalil and his attorney didn’t see a physical version of it. “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 in a statement shared with the outlet.

On Sunday afternoon, Khalil’s wife said she didn’t know of her husband’s location. On Sunday evening, ICE’s detainee tracker showed that Khalil is being held at the Jena/LaSalle Detention Facility in Louisiana, a facility known for human rights abuses.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement on Sunday that ICE detained Khalil “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism” and that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted on Sunday afternoon. The State Department has told several outlets that it has “broad authority to revoke visas” under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

While terms like these (“anti-Semitism” and “activities aligned to Hamas”) are broadly applied by pro-Israel voices to nearly any statements or actions in support of Palestine, criticism of the state of Israel is not inherently antisemitic—in case it needs repeating.

However, threatening to revoke residential status, and arresting, detaining, and concealing the whereabouts of an individual based solely on their political beliefs and speech is a clear-cut example of an authoritarian regime.

Mahmoud Khalil has been quietly sent 1000+ miles away to a Louisiana ICE facility.

Note this ACLU/RFK Human Rights report from *just months ago* on ICE detention in LA —

“Inside the Black Hole: Systemic Human Rights Abuses Against Immigrants Detained & Disappeared in Louisiana”

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— Prem Thakker ツ (@premthakker.bsky.social) March 10, 2025 at 10:33 AM

Khalil’s detainment comes after the Trump administration in January threatened to revoke student visas of anyone it determines to be aligned with Hamas. The administration also threatened to withhold federal funding from universities that don’t sufficiently clamp down on pro-Palestine student protesters. On Friday, hours before Khalil’s arrest, the administration cut $400 million in grants to Columbia, accusing the university of failing to combat antisemitism.

Columbia has had one of the most aggressive responses to students protesting Israel’s genocide, last spring and again last week siccing heavily militarized police officers on student protesters. In February, Columbia’s Barnard College expelled three students, two for allegedly disrupting a class called the History of Modern Israel, and another for allegedly protesting the university’s ties to Israel. This marked the first time that Columbia students have been expelled for political activism since 1968, following protests against the Vietnam War. These gestures from Columbia—colluding with police to assault and harass students, and expelling students for speech—appeared to be concessions to far-right pressure campaigns so the university could hold on to funding.

Instead of defending a recently graduated student, Columbia on Sunday issued a public statement obliquely referring to Khalil, saying that it “has and will continue to follow the law.” The university stressed that “law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including University buildings” but that was all. Columbia largely seems to have conceded to the Trump administration when it comes to the authoritarian arrest of one of its students.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s lawless decision to arrest [Khalil] solely because of his peaceful anti-genocide activism represents a blatant attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, immigration laws, and the very humanity of Palestinians,” CAIR National, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, said in a statement on Sunday. “We and other civil rights groups are in communication with Mahmoud’s legal counsel. This fight is just starting.”