Trump warns that ICE’s arrest of Palestinian activist at Columbia is ‘first of many’

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The Trump administration has vowed to proceed an immigration crackdown towards campus activists who it deems are antisemitic, following the controversial arrest of Columbia College protest chief Mahmoud Khalil on Sunday.

“That is the primary arrest of many to come back,” President Donald Trump warned in a publish on Reality Social, accusing Khalil of being a “Radical Overseas Professional-Hamas Pupil.”

“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 won’t tolerate it,” Trump added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had an identical message Sunday.

“We might be revoking the visas and/or inexperienced playing cards of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported,” he wrote in a press release.

The White Home additionally posted in regards to the arrest, telling Khalil, “Shalom, Mahmoud,” utilizing the Hebrew phrase for goodbye.

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Khalil, a authorized everlasting U.S. resident who was born in Palestine, graduated from Columbia in late 2024. He was arrested Sunday contained in the university-owned condominium the place he lives together with his spouse, a U.S. citizen.

A gaggle of plainclothes Immigration and Customs Brokers brokers adopted the couple into the constructing and mentioned Khalil was beneath arrest as a result of his pupil visa had been revoked by the State Division, his lawyer mentioned.

Columbia has a basic coverage of requiring immigration brokers to current a warrant earlier than coming into campus buildings except in exigent circumstances. The college declined to reply The Unbiased when requested about whether or not the brokers shared their warrant earlier than the arrest.

Khalil’s spouse, and later his lawyer, advised the brokers he had a inexperienced card, prompting the brokers to say that had been revoked, too.

Solely an immigration choose can revoke a inexperienced card, in response to specialists.

A spokesperson for the Division of Homeland Safety, which oversees ICE, advised The Unbiased on Sunday that Khalil was arrested “in assist of President Trump’s govt orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”

Khalil “led actions aligned to Hamas, a chosen terrorist group,” they added.

In January, a Trump govt order vowed to deport immigrant college students who broke U.S. legal guidelines through the wave of campus protests throughout the U.S. final 12 months amid the Israel-Hamas battle.

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A White Home reality sheet on the time steered the administration would try and deport such immigrants on even broader, viewpoint-based grounds, going in any case those that joined the protests or have been “Hamas sympathizers,” provisions more likely to face authorized challenges on constitutional free speech grounds.

Following his arrest, Khalil, who served as a negotiator between college students and directors throughout tense encampment and constructing occupation protests on campus, instantly sought a habeas corpus petition difficult the legality of his detention on First Modification and due course of grounds.

Nonetheless, ICE moved the chief to a detention facility in Louisiana, lots of of miles from his lawyer and household.

A federal choose on Monday paused any removing proceedings towards Khalil till no less than after a listening to in New York on Wednesday.

In a court docket petition obtained by Courthouse Information, Khalil accused the federal government of “open repression of pupil activism and political speech, particularly concentrating on college students at Columbia College for criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza.”

The “U.S. authorities has made clear that they’ll use immigration enforcement as a instrument to suppress that speech.” he added.

The Middle for Constitutional Rights has joined within the effort to problem Khalil’s detention in Louisiana, in response to court docket paperwork.

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Civil liberties advocates expressed alarm over the arrest, arguing it was an indication of authoritarianism.

“Arresting and threatening to deport college students due to their participation in political protest is the form of motion one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes. It’s genuinely stunning that this seems to be what’s occurring proper right here,” Jameel Jaffer, govt director of the Knight First Modification Middle at Columbia, wrote in a press release in Endlessly Wars.

“Universities should acknowledge that these actions pose an existential risk to tutorial life itself. They have to clarify, by motion, that they won’t sit on the sidelines because the Trump administration terrorizes college students and college alike and runs roughshod over particular person rights and the rule of legislation.”

By Monday afternoon, a rising coalition together with the First Modification watchdog FIRE and numerous congressional Democrats have been calling for the expulsion effort to be instantly dropped and accused the Trump administration of trying to criminalize speech the White Home disagreed with.

“[T]he authorities has not made clear the factual or authorized foundation for Mr. Khalil’s arrest. The statements the federal government has launched counsel its resolution could also be primarily based on his constitutionally protected speech,” wrote FIRE in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and different Trump administration officers on Monday.

Donna Lieberman, CEO of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), mentioned on Monday that Khalil’s arrest “reeks of McCarthyism”. She added that the federal authorities had “no authority” to strip his everlasting residence standing over political speech.

At a press convention, school at Columbia additionally known as for Khalil’s launch and attacked his detention as illegal.

“Universities can not exist when college students are persecuted, arrested and disappeared for his or her political views,” mentioned Nara Milanich, a professor at Columbia’s Barnard Faculty.

College students advised The Unbiased the arrest was making a local weather of concern of additional ICE operations on campus.

“Given the magnitude of statements made by the president and his administration, I really feel I’m not secure figuring out they’re round campus,” one worldwide pupil advised The Unbiased.

Protests in assist of Khalil are anticipated in New York on Monday afternoon.

Over 1.5 million individuals despatched letters in assist of the protest chief after the arrest.

Previous to his detention, Khalil despatched a number of messages to senior campus officers, asking for cover given the “vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing marketing campaign” he confronted from people calling for his arrest, together with Columbia school, Zeteo stories.

After the arrest, the Zionist group Betar, amongst these Khalil talked about in his messages to workers, appeared to take credit score for the detention.

“Shalom Mahmoud might be mentioned many, many extra occasions,” the group wrote on X. “He complained to Columbia about Betar. We affirm we have now offered 1000’s of names to the ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ administration. Many extra will go!”

The group has beforehand used aggressive techniques, together with providing rewards to provide pro-Palestinian activists “beepers,” a seeming reference to Israel’s latest pager-based explosive assault on Hezbollah that killed quite a few civilians alongside militants.

The Trump administration has made tackling what it deems to be antisemitism on campus a significant coverage precedence, launching investigations of main Ivy League colleges and pulling $400 million in federal funding from Columbia.

The hassle to deport Khalil comes after a 12 months of tense confrontations and debates between college directors and pupil activist leaders across the nation.

At many schools and universities, together with Columbia, protesters have been accused of constructing Jewish college students really feel unsafe — each as a result of efforts of conservatives to tar all criticism of Israel as antisemitic, in addition to actual cases of anti-Jewish hate that surged in frequency alongside Islamophobic hate on some campuses.

Amongst Democrats, the problem is one other place the place the social gathering is split.

Many Democrats spent a lot of 2024 condemning the protests as broadly antisemitic in nature, although progressives together with Palestinian-American Rep Rashida Tlaib have argued towards these characterizations of the protests with out endorsing them explicitly.

“Free Mahmoud Khalil. That is straight out of the fascist playbook,” Tlaib wrote on X on Monday. “Criminalizing dissent is an assault on our First Modification and freedom of speech. Revoking somebody’s inexperienced card for expressing their political opinion is against the law. Protesting genocide shouldn’t be a criminal offense.”