(CNN) — Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student protest movement demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, was arrested Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who said they were acting on a State Department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.
Khalil’s arrest is the latest escalation by President Donald Trump to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses, and comes days after he vowed to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” involved in “illegal protests.”
“On March 9, 2025, in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student. Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” the US Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X Sunday night.
Khalil was at the forefront of the student-led anti-war movement at Columbia University last year. He was among those under investigation by a new university committee that brought disciplinary charges against dozens of students for their pro-Palestinian activism, according to the Associated Press.
“ICE’s arrest and detention of Mahmoud 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,” Khalil’s attorney Amy Greer said. “The US government has made clear that they will use immigration enforcement as a tool to suppress that speech.”
A habeas corpus petition was filed on Khalil’s behalf challenging the validity of his arrest and detention, Greer said, adding that his legal team does not know where he is currently detained. After initially being told Khalil was transferred to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, when his wife tried to visit him, she was told he was not detained there, Greer said.
A spokesperson at the ICE New York Field Office told CNN the arrest was led by the department’s Homeland Security Investigations.
Immigration experts say this is an extraordinary move with an uncertain legal foundation, the Associated Press reported, noting DHS can initiate deportation proceedings against green card holders for alleged criminal activity, including supporting a terror group.
“Visa records are confidential under U.S. law. Therefore, we cannot comment on individual visa cases,” a State Department spokesperson said. “For questions on removals or green card status, we refer you to the Department of Homeland Security.
Khalil, a recent graduate, was apprehended by two plainclothes Department of Homeland Security agents at the university-owned apartment building where he lives with his wife, a US citizen, Writers Against the War on Gaza said in a press release
The DHS agents said the US Department of State revoked Khalil’s student visa, although he does not have a student visa, but rather a green card, and is a lawful permanent resident, WAWOG said. When Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, showed the agents his green card, “one agent was visibly confused and said on the phone, ‘He has a green card’,” according to the press release.
“However, after a moment, the DHS agents stated that the State Department had ‘revoked that too.’ Khalil’s wife then phoned his attorney, who spoke with the agents in an attempt to intervene,” WAWOG said. “When Khalil’s attorney requested that a copy of the warrant be emailed to her, the agent hung up the call.”
Columbia University confirmed in a statement Sunday that there have been reports of ICE around campus and said the university “has and will continue to follow the law.”
The university did not respond to CNN’s request for additional information, including if the school had received a valid warrant for Khalil’s arrest, which its statement said is required before entering Columbia property.
Activists, friends fight for his release
Columbia has been at the forefront of US campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza since last year, inspiring a wave of demonstrations across university campuses in the US and abroad. Last April, protesters at Columbia went on to seize a campus building, resulting in dozens of arrests – some of those cases were later dismissed in court.
Congressional Republicans grilled Columbia’s then-President Minouche Shafik about the university’s response to antisemitism. Shafik said she was “personally committed to doing everything I can to confront it directly.” She resigned four months later.
Weeks later, a university task force said that Jews and Israelis at the school were ostracized from student groups, humiliated in classrooms and subjected to verbal abuse amid the spring demonstrations.
In recent days, a much smaller contingent of demonstrators have staged brief occupations of buildings at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College to protest the expulsion of two students accused of disrupting an Israeli history class. Several students were arrested following an hourslong takeover of a building Wednesday.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have repeatedly said there’s nothing antisemitic about criticizing Israel over its actions in Gaza or expressing solidarity with Palestinians and calling for a ceasefire.
Since Hamas’ deadly attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. It also has imposed a siege and razed entire communities, rendering nearly 90% of the population displaced and 100% food insecure.
Although demands among protesters varied at each university, the majority of demonstrations called for their colleges to divest from companies that support Israel and the war in Gaza.
At Columbia, Khalil was selected to serve as a negotiator for the students during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the university campus and spent 17 months protesting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment was organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student-led coalition of more than 100 organizations including Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace, to protest what they describe as the university’s “continued financial investment in corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine,” according to CUAD.
“(Khalil) had so much moral clarity about why it was important that we advocate against genocide, and how, considering all of the privilege that we had, we had to use it in order to advocate for those who do not have that privilege,” Jude Taha, a student reporter who graduated from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism told CNN.
Khalil was calling for Columbia University to “stop using the student endowment to invest in different Israeli weapons manufacturing companies and basically remove any sort of support from Israel,” said Zainab Khan, another Columbia graduate who was active in the student-led anti-war movement.
The university’s allegations against Khalil focused on his involvement in the CUAD group. He faced sanctions for potentially helping to organize an “unauthorized marching event” and playing a “substantial role” in the circulation of social media posts criticizing Zionism, among other acts of alleged discrimination, according to the AP.
“I have around 13 allegations against me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” Khalil told the AP earlier.
Khalil’s arrest has not discouraged activists from participating in pro-Palestinian causes – but it has made them worried about their safety, Khan said.
“Everyone is scared, everyone’s angry,” she added. “If this can happen to one of the best in our group, then it can happen to anyone.”
Despite their fears, Khalil’s arrest will only strengthen the activists’ efforts and unify them, Khan said.
Trump administration ramps up efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian voices
Columbia has become the first target in Trump’s campaign to cut federal money to colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.
Trump signed an executive order during his second week in office to “combat antisemitism” on college campuses – by potentially revoking visas and directing universities to “monitor” and “report” on international students and staff.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump said in a fact sheet published with the executive order.
The Trump administration also pulled $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University because of what it describes as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus. Columbia said in a statement it is reviewing the measure and will work with the government to restore funding.
“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X in response to reports of Khalil’s detention.
New York University Professor Robert Cohen, an expert in student activism and social protest in 20th-century America, told CNN the Trump administration’s language and generalization that protesters are “pro-jihadist” is “dangerous.”
“To act as if everybody in the movement is supporting Hamas is a vast oversimplification,” Cohen said. “Most people involved in the movement nationally were opposed to the war because of the fact that there were a lot of people dying, a lot of civilians were getting killed.”
“He has other tweets defending free speech, meanwhile, he’s trying to suppress anti-war dissent,” Cohen said, referring to Trump’s support of the January 6 rioters. Trump granted sweeping clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people, including hundreds who were guilty of assaulting police, charged in the attack on the US Capitol.
The Trump administration’s efforts to use immigration threats against student protesters are “xenophobic” and reflect a “police state mindset,” which displays “the ugly underside of American political culture,” Cohen said.
Outcry from civil rights groups
Civil rights and advocacy organizations have also expressed outrage at Khalil’s arrest.
“Khalil is a lawful permanent resident of our nation who has not been charged with or convicted of a single crime,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said in a statement.
“The Department of Homeland Security’s lawless decision to arrest him 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 added.
Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, condemned Khalil’s arrest and said the targeting of the activist is an “affront” to his First Amendment rights.
“This blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America,” Awawdeh said.
As Khalil’s friends and legal team continue their search for where he is being detained, and advocating for his release, their mission to raise awareness on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the funding of the war will not be deterred, Taha and Khan say.
“He is uncompromising on his principles, and uncompromising about making sure that we make this about Palestine,” Khan said.
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