Professional-Palestinian scholar protester detained by US immigration officers, says lawyer
A scholar who performed a outstanding function throughout pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia College in New York Metropolis final 12 months has been detained by federal immigration officers, says his lawyer.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was lead scholar negotiator for the encampment on the campus on the west aspect of Manhattan.
His lawyer, Amy Greer, advised the BBC that Mr Khalil was inside his university-owned dwelling when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers took him into custody on Saturday.
Columbia was the epicentre final 12 months of pro-Palestinian scholar protests nationwide in opposition to the battle in Gaza and US help for Israel.
The BBC contacted the Division of Homeland Safety, the Division of State and Columbia College on Sunday for remark.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio later posted a information story on X in regards to the arrest of Mr Khalil, commenting: “We might be revoking the visas and/or inexperienced playing cards of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported”.
Ms Greer mentioned the ICE brokers advised Mr Khalil his scholar visa had been revoked, however she mentioned her consumer is a authorized everlasting resident with a inexperienced card and married to an American citizen.
“Initially we had been knowledgeable this morning that he had been transferred to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey,” Ms Greer mentioned.
“Nevertheless, 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 now, she was advised he isn’t detained there.”
She mentioned 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 mentioned they’d heard that Mr Khalil might be transferred as distant as Louisiana, with out including particulars.
The lawyer mentioned what occurred to her consumer is a “horrible and inexcusable – and calculated – flawed”.
Through the protests final summer time, Mr Khalil mentioned he was main negotiations with college directors on behalf of the scholar protesters.
That they had arrange an enormous tent encampment on the college garden in protest in opposition to the Gaza battle.
Some college students additionally seized management of an instructional 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 BBC he had been briefly suspended by the college, the place he’s a graduate scholar on the Faculty 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 school campuses” could be deported.
Some Jewish college students at Columbia have mentioned that rhetoric on the demonstrations at instances 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 mentioned in a campus-wide e-mail on Friday that “the cancellation of those funds will instantly influence analysis and different important capabilities of the College”.
The Israeli army launched its marketing campaign in opposition to Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border assault into Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 individuals lifeless and 251 taken hostage.
Greater than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s army motion, in keeping with the Hamas-run well being ministry.
