The Student Workers of Columbia union issued a statement on Sunday, March 9, informing of the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia graduate who led pro-Palestinian protests last year, by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Saturday.
Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, later declared in a statement to the Associated Press that upon speaking to ICE officers, she was told that the agents were acting on the behest of the State Department to revoke Khalil’s visa– A colossal infringement given that Khalil is a lawful permanent US citizen.
The activist has since been transferred to an immigration detention facility without providing his eight-month pregnant wife with any explanation about this arrest. “We have not been able to get any more details about why he is being detained,” said Greer. “This is a clear escalation. The administration is following through on its threats.”
Greer’s statement references the pledge that current US President Donald Trump made last year during his presidential campaign, which entailed deporting international students who joined protests and university encampments denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Protesters have since swarmed the streets of New York, denouncing the arrest and deeming it a “threat to the first amendment” of free speech that the US president allegedly holds so dearly.
Trump confirmed that the activist’s arrest was following previously signed executive orders and labelled Khalil as a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and vowed that this would be the first arrest of many.
“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,” he stated. “Many are not students, they are paid agitators,” Trump claimed without providing any proof of his allegations.
Jewish organizations have also condemned Khalil’s arrest, once again refuting allegations of anti-Semitism accusations that the US administration weaponizes to justify facilitating genocide, both through biased media coverage and the endless supply of arms to Israel.
“The Trump administration’s outrageous detention of Mahmoud Khalil is designed to sow terror among students and immigrant communities to silence people calling for Palestinian freedom and to feed the mass deportation machine,” declared Jewish Voices for Peace.
A New York federal court judge has halted the decision to deport Khalil until a further court order, meaning that his fate, as well as that of many other students, remains in jeopardy.
Khalil, who is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, has led the student protests that swept US campuses last year. He and other pro-Palestinian students called for Columbia’s divestment from companies with ties to Israel, thus attempting to put an end to the genocide that has killed, a conservative estimate of, almost 50.000 Palestinians in Gaza and rendered life almost impossible in the enclave.
