President Donald Trump confirmed Monday that federal immigration agents arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and up to date Columbia College graduate who was taken this weekend — regardless of being a everlasting authorized resident of the US — for serving to peacefully lead antiwar protests on campus final 12 months.
Regardless of not having a warrant, plainclothes brokers abducted Khalil Saturday night as he returned to his university-owned residence along with his spouse, a U.S. citizen who’s eight months pregnant. Brokers claimed they had been revoking Syrian-born Khalil’s inexperienced card and in addition threatened to detain his spouse, in keeping with a habeas corpus petition his lawyer Amy Greer filed on his behalf.
Greer says that the arrest, which was confirmed by the Division of Homeland Safety, violates Khalil’s First Modification and due course of rights. On Monday night, a district judge ruled in opposition to deporting him from the U.S. pending additional authorized motion in his case.
“The remarks by authorities officers, together with the President, on social media solely verify the aim – and illegality – of Mahmoud’s detention,” Greer stated in a Monday night assertion. “He was chosen for example to stifle fully lawful dissent in violation of the First Modification. Whereas tomorrow or thereafter the federal government could cite the legislation or course of, that toothpaste is out of the tube and irreversibly so. The federal government’s goal is as clear as it’s illegal, and our function as Mahmoud’s attorneys is to make sure it doesn’t prevail.”
Trump introduced the arrest himself on Monday afternoon, with the president labeling the Palestinian man a “Radical Overseas Professional-Hamas Pupil” with out offering any proof to help that declare. The arrest was first reported by Zeteo.
“That is the primary arrest of many to come back. We all know there are extra college students at Columbia and different Universities throughout the Nation who’ve engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American exercise, and the Trump Administration is not going to tolerate it,” Trump posted on Truth Social, once more claiming with out proof that antiwar activists on faculty campuses are “paid agitators” and never college students.
Khalil, who obtained his grasp’s diploma from Columbia’s Faculty of Worldwide and Public Affairs, was a outstanding determine in final spring’s protests on faculty campuses nationwide. College students and college of all faiths nonviolently called on the U.S. to stop supporting Israel’s deadly military offensive in Gaza and for their universities to divest from corporations that work with the Israeli army and authorities.
Columbia University, in particular, got here underneath scrutiny for its aggressive response that included allowing New York police to destroy solidarity encampments and arrest protesters. Khalil was a lead negotiator within the college’s encampment and simply final week told The Associated Press that he was amongst these under investigation by a brand new Columbia workplace that has disciplined dozens of pro-Palestinian scholar activists.
“There have been experiences of ICE round campus. Columbia has and can proceed to observe the legislation,” the university said in a Sunday statement. “In line with our longstanding observe and the observe of cities and establishments all through the nation, legislation enforcement will need to have a judicial warrant to enter private College areas, together with College buildings.”
Yuki Iwamura by way of Related Press
Three ICE brokers additionally visited a second international scholar at Columbia over the weekend and tried to enter her university-owned residence with no warrant, in keeping with a graduate scholar union representing the unidentified lady. The Pupil Staff of Columbia stated the brokers had been “rightfully turned away on the door,” in keeping with the AP.
Columbia College didn’t say whether or not it had prior data of Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers arresting Khalil with no warrant. However the faculty introduced its Morningside campus is basically locking down starting Monday and could have extra public security guards on the gates and across the perimeter, in keeping with an email obtained by Zeteo.
“It’s not a criminalized exercise to talk out in opposition to genocide. Actually, it’s antiracist, it’s for justice and it’s for the wellbeing of everybody internationally, together with this nation,” Layan Fuleihan, training director for the Individuals’s Discussion board, advised HuffPost at a peaceable New York Metropolis protest for Khalil’s launch. “I’d say that is one thing we’re not intimidated by, we’re going to be preventing for Mahmoud’s launch and for anybody who’s focused on this outrageous witch hunt coming from the U.S. administration.”
Immigration experts say DHS can begin deportation proceedings in opposition to inexperienced card holders for alleged legal exercise, however the authorized foundation for detaining a authorized everlasting resident with out legal costs is shaky.
Whereas DHS accused Khalil of partaking in “actions aligned to Hamas,” the company gave no evidence of him providing material support to the militant group.
Greer stated she was initially advised that Khalil was transferred to an ICE detention middle in New Jersey. Upon visiting the ability, his spouse was advised he was not there. Based on the ICE detainee tracker, Khalil has been transferred to the Jena/LaSalle Detention Facility in Louisiana.
Mary Altaffer by way of Related Press
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin didn’t reply to HuffPost to say why brokers didn’t inform Khalil’s spouse of his location, nor why brokers ignored Khalil’s constitutional rights by taking him, a authorized everlasting resident of the U.S., with no warrant.
Columbia and the federal authorities quickly confronted intense backlash over Khalil’s arrest, with school, advocacy teams, attorneys and college students all demanding ICE launch him and finish Trump’s ongoing free speech crackdown disguised as preventing antisemitism.
“My dedicated Jewish school colleagues and I’ve warned that the false characterization of Columbia as a hotbed of antisemitism can be used as an alibi for what’s really at stake, for the Republican institution and now the Trump administration,” Marianne Hirsch, a professor emerita at Columbia, stated on Monday. “Strict management of speech, protest and better training at giant.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim American advocacy group, stated it will join other civil rights organizations in serving to battle Khalil’s detention, which is the primary publicly recognized deportation effort underneath Trump’s ongoing crackdown on free speech that he’s portrayed as fighting antisemitism.
“It’s completely despicable that they’re finishing up this authoritarian lurch underneath the guise of preventing for Jewish security. Let’s be completely clear: not solely does destroying increased training and abducting college students for political speech not maintain Jews secure, it actively endangers us,” stated Eva Borgwardt, spokesperson for progressive Jewish American group IfNotNow, on Monday.
“If we don’t all strongly oppose this dystopian crackdown on freedom of expression, directed by a authorities with many neo-Nazi ties and members, any of Trump’s political opponents might be its subsequent victims,” she continued. “Advocates for reproductive justice, local weather motion, trans rights, immigrant rights and different progressive causes.”
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Matt Shuham contributed to reporting.
