A pupil who performed a distinguished function throughout pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia College in New York Metropolis final yr has been detained by federal immigration officers, says his lawyer.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was lead pupil negotiator for the encampment on the campus on the west facet of Manhattan.
His lawyer, Amy Greer, advised the NEWSTORN that Mr Khalil was inside his university-owned residence when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers took him into custody on Saturday.
Columbia was the epicentre final yr of pro-Palestinian pupil protests nationwide towards the battle in Gaza and US assist for Israel.
The NEWSTORN has contacted the Division of Homeland Safety, the Division of State and Columbia College for remark.
Ms Greer stated the ICE brokers advised Mr Khalil his pupil visa had been revoked, however she stated her shopper is a authorized everlasting resident with a inexperienced card and married to an American citizen.
“Initially we have been knowledgeable this morning that he had been transferred to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey,” Ms Greer stated.
“Nonetheless, when his spouse – a US citizen who’s eight months’ pregnant and was threatened with arrest as properly by the ICE brokers final evening – tried to go to him there right this moment, she was advised he’s not detained there.”
She stated she is unaware of Mr Khalil’s present location, though a web-based detainee locator search on the ICE web site signifies a Syrian-born particular person named Mahmoud Khalil was being held on the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility in New Jersey.
Ms Greer stated that they had heard that Mr Khalil may very well be transferred as far-off as Louisiana, with out including particulars.
The lawyer stated what occurred to her shopper is a “horrible and inexcusable – and calculated – incorrect”.
In the course of the protests final summer season, Mr Khalil stated he was main negotiations with college directors on behalf of the scholar protesters.
They’d arrange an enormous tent encampment on the college garden in protest towards the Gaza battle.
Some college students additionally seized management of a tutorial constructing for a number of hours earlier than police entered the campus to arrest them. Mr Khalil was not in that group.
He later advised the NEWSTORN he had been quickly suspended by the college, the place he’s a graduate pupil on the College of Worldwide and Public Affairs.
Mr Khalil’s detention follows President Donald Trump’s government order in January warning anybody concerned in “pro-jihadist protests” and “all Hamas sympathizers on faculty campuses” could be deported.
Some Jewish college students at Columbia have stated that rhetoric on the demonstrations at occasions crossed the road into antisemitism. Different Jewish college students on campus have joined the pro-Palestinian protests.
The Trump administration final week introduced it was revoking $400m (£310m) in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to battle antisemitism on campus.
Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong stated in a campus-wide electronic mail on Friday that “the cancellation of those funds will instantly influence analysis and different important capabilities of the College”.
The Israeli navy launched its marketing campaign towards Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border assault into Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 individuals useless and 251 taken hostage.
Greater than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s navy motion, based on the Hamas-run well being ministry.
