Rights and Accountability 10 March 2025
Mahmoud Khalil (Courtesy of Writers Against the War on Gaza)
As of Monday morning, Mahmoud Khalil was being detained at a federal immigration facility in Louisiana.
The recent Columbia graduate was inside his university-owned apartment on Saturday night in New York City when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents entered and detained him, his attorney Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.
As he languishes in a cell far from his home and family, fellow students are denouncing Columbia’s silence and apparent complicity in his arrest.
On Sunday, the US Department of Homeland Security confirmed Khalil’s arrest, claiming it was for “activities aligned to Hamas.”
Khalil’s detention is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s crackdown on supporters of Palestinian rights under the pretext of fighting “anti-Semitism” and support for “terrorism.”
Well-known and respected on campus, Khalil led negotiations between university officials and students during last year’s campus encampment protesting the Israeli genocide in Palestine and amid the ongoing crackdown.
An Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin and a legal permanent resident of the United States, Khalil’s green card is supposed to afford him all the constitutional free speech protections enjoyed by US citizens.
Arbitrary arrest
According to Greer, the ICE agents also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, a US citizen who is eight months pregnant.
“Greer said she spoke by phone with one of the ICE agents during the arrest, who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa,” the Associated Press reported.
“Informed by the attorney that Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that instead, according to the lawyer.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared an AP article about Khalil’s arrest on Twitter/X on Sunday, vowing that “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
While green card holders like Khalil can lose their residency under certain conditions, their status cannot be arbitrarily canceled by the government.Permanent residency can only be revoked by an immigration judge based on specific criteria set out in the law, following due process that appears to be absent in Khalil’s case.
During the arrest, one of the agents “showed Khalil what he claimed was a warrant on his phone,” according to a press release from the solidarity group Writers Against the War on Gaza.
Khalil’s wife then went to retrieve his green card while the agents waited with Khalil.
“When she returned, advising them of Khalil’s legal status and presenting them with Khalil’s green card, one agent was visibly confused and said on the phone, ‘He has a green card,’” according to the press release.
Khalil’s wife then called the lawyer who spoke to the agents, but when the lawyer requested a copy of the warrant, the agent reportedly hung up.
Greer has filed a habeas corpus petition – an emergency legal challenge to the validity of Khalil’s detention.
The attorney told The Washington Post that Khalil’s arrest “follows the US government’s open repression of student activism and political speech, specifically targeting students at Columbia University for criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza.”
Federal agents also attempted to detain another international student at Columbia over the weekend.
“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 Associated Press reported.
“The agents were rightfully turned away at the door,” the union said.
Outrage and solidarity
By Monday morning, an online petition demanding Khalil’s release had attracted more than a million signatures.
Palestinian community and solidarity groups called for an emergency rally outside the federal building in New York City.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee condemned Khalil’s arrest as “an extreme and blatant act of political retaliation for his First Amendment-protected advocacy.”FIRE, a legal advocacy group that defends free speech on campuses, warned that “Just as students and other demonstrators are obliged to abide by lawful rules of conduct, our government must abide by the First Amendment.”
Democratic Party Congress members Pramila Jayapal and Rashida Tlaib, and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani also denounced Khalil’s arrest as an attack on free speech and fundamental rights.Columbia’s complicity
While alarm is growing at this government censorship and repression, there is also considerable anger at the silence and apparent complicity of Columbia University, which has been waging a severe crackdown on supporters of Palestinian rights in an attempt to appease pro-Israel donors and politicians.
That effort has been totally futile, as the Trump administration last week canceled $400 million in federal grants to Columbia in retaliation for the university’s failure to sufficiently repress protests against Israel’s genocide.“Despite the brutality of his detention and the looming threat to his life and liberty, Columbia University – an institution that prides itself on academic freedom and the pursuit of justice – has remained disturbingly silent,” the Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition said on Monday.
“This silence is not merely a failure to defend one of its own, but an endorsement of an unjust, anti-Palestinian and politically motivated detention.”
The university did not answer a reporter’s questions about whether it had advance knowledge of ICE activities around campus or of Khalil’s arrest, instead directing the reporter to a general statement.
But according to the Columbia Spectator, a campus newspaper, students noticed ICE activity around campus on Saturday.“Three campus housing security officers confirmed to Spectator that they received notice of ICE presence surrounding campus from supervisors on Saturday,” the publication reported – an indication that officials may well have had advance notice.
“Columbia University has published guidance on how best to collaborate with federal enforcement, including advising faculty and staff ‘not to interfere’ with ICE agents even if those agents are unable to present a warrant,” according to Writers Against the War on Gaza.
The university’s policy confirms that “Exigent circumstances may allow for access to University buildings or people without a warrant.”
This contrasts with peer institutions such as New York University, whose own guidelines state that “Should law enforcement officials wish to enter NYU facilities for immigration-related enforcement purposes, they must have a judicial warrant or subpoena in order to do so.”
“Columbia’s continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible,” Writers Against the War on Gaza said. “A Palestinian student and member of the community has been abducted and detained without the physical demonstration of a warrant or officially filed charges.”
“Like many other Arab and Muslim students, Khalil has been the target of various zionist harassment campaigns, fueled by doxxing websites like Canary Mission,” the group added.
Khalil is also among several students under investigation by the university itself, as part of its ongoing repression of speech in support of Palestinian rights.
“I have around 13 allegations against me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” Khalil told the Associated Press last week.
“They just want to show Congress and right-wing politicians that they’re doing something, regardless of the stakes for students,” Khalil added.
Israel lobbyists have unsurprisingly welcomed Khalil’s arrest and urged an even broader crackdown.
The Anti-Defamation League, an Israel lobby group that masquerades as a civil rights organization, issued a post on Twitter/X about Khalil’s arrest, calling for “swift and severe consequences for those who provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations, incite violence in support of terrorist activities, or conceal their identities in order to harass and intimidate Jewish individuals.”
This is a standard litany of the Israel lobby’s false and unsubstantiated blanket accusations against Palestine solidarity activists in order to demonize them and incite government repression.
There have been calls for Columbia students and faculty to cancel classes in protest at the university’s complicity in Khalil’s arrest and the Trump administration’s anti-Palestinian crackdown.In an apparent attempt to head off such solidarity actions, administrators sent out an email on Monday morning asserting that “Classes and exams will continue as usual, in person” and warning, “This is also a reminder that faculty must meet all scheduled classes.”
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