Free speech organizations and advocates are expressing outrage after a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, was arrested and detained over the weekend.
Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card, was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities on Saturday night, who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.
His attorney, Amy Greer, said that Khalil, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, was in his university-owned apartment building, just a few blocks from Columbia’s main campus in New York, when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building on Saturday night and took him into custody.
Greer said the authorities also declined to tell his wife, who is a US citizen and eight months pregnant, why Khalil was being detained.
“The US government has made clear that they will use immigration enforcement as a tool to suppress that speech,” Greer said, adding that a habeas corpus petition had been filed on Khalil’s behalf challenging the validity of his arrest and detention.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed the arrest of Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate who has worked for the British embassy in Beirut, and alleged that Khalil’s activism constituted “activities aligned to Hamas”.
At first, it was reported that Khalil was taken to an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, but his wife said she could not locate him there. As of Monday morning, it appeared that he was now listed as being in Ice custody at La Salle detention facility in Louisiana.
Khalil served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University last year, mediating between protesters and university administrators. According to Reuters, he was not among the students who occupied a campus building.
More recently, according to the Associated Press. Khalil was reportedly among several students under investigation by a new Columbia committee that has brought disciplinary charges against dozens of students for their pro-Palestinian activism.
A Columbia spokesperson told the Associated Press over the weekend that law enforcement officials needed a warrant to enter university property but did not disclose whether the school had received a warrant for Khalil’s arrest.
The university recently issued guidance on “potential visits to campus” by Ice, where it states that “exigent circumstances” may allow Ice to access “university buildings or people without a warrant”.
Khalil’s detention has sparked outrage from civil rights groups and first amendment organizations and advocates.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said that “arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes”.
He said that universities “must recognize that these actions pose an existential threat to academic life itself” and must “make clear, through action, that they will not sit on the sidelines as the Trump administration terrorizes students and faculty alike and runs roughshod over individual rights and the rule of law”.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, condemned Khalil’s detention as a “targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his first amendment rights”.
“The unlawful detention of Mr Khalil reeks of McCarthyism,” Lieberman said. “It’s clear that the Trump administration is selectively punishing Mr Khalil for expressing views that aren’t Maga-approved – which is a frightening escalation of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, and an aggressive abuse of immigration law.”
Lieberman warned that “ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campus” and said that “political speech should never be a basis of punishment, or lead to deportation”.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire) emphasized that “anyone facing arrest and detention must be afforded due process” stating that just as students and demonstrators “are obliged to abide by lawful rules of conduct, our government must abide by the first amendment”.
“The government must be clear and transparent about the basis for its actions to avoid chilling protected speech,” the statement added.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations highlighted that Khalil is a lawful permanent resident with no criminal charges and called the detention “lawless” and a violation of free speech rights, immigration laws and the humanity of Palestinians.
While the state department can rescind visas, Elora Mukherjee, director of the immigrants’ rights clinic at Columbia Law School told the New York Times that revoking a green card was relatively rare and usually only occurs after criminal convictions.
Mukherjee said that if the government were to revoke Khalil’s green card “in retaliation for his public speech, that is prohibited by the first amendment of the US constitution”.
Eli Northrup, a New York City public defender and policy advocate, said on social media that “no matter what your views are on Israel & Palestine, you should be terrified of a country incarcerating its residents for exercising free speech.”
Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement that “Khalil and all people living in the United States are afforded due process.
“A green card can only be revoked by an immigration judge, showing once again that the Trump administration is willing to ignore the law in order to instill fear and further its racist agenda” Awawdeh said.
Several New York City lawmakers, leaders and advocates also criticized Khalil’s arrest and called for his release.
Zohran Mamdani, the Queens assembly member and mayoral candidate, called the arrest “a blatant assault on the first amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump”.
The New York City comptroller, Brad Lander, also running for mayor, described the arrest as unconstitutional, and argued that deporting individuals for their speech does not make any community safer.
“Ice’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is an unconstitutional and egregious violation of the first amendment, and a frightening weaponization of immigration law,” Lander said. “I disagree strongly with things that were said in the protests he reportedly led. But it will not make Jews – or any of us – safer for the federal government to deport people for saying things we may find hateful.”
The student workers union at Columbia University called on Columbia university leadership to protect their international students. “By allowing Ice on campus, Columbia is surrendering to the Trump administration’s assault on universities across the country and sacrificing international students to protect its finances,” the union said.
The Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who represents Washington state, also took to social media, describing the arrest as “unacceptable” and a violation of free speech rights.
“The Trump admin is going after students who have used their first amendment, constitutional rights,” Jayapal wrote. “Deporting legal residents solely for expressing their political opinions is a violation of free speech rights. Who’s next? Citizens?”
While first amendment groups have condemned the arrest, the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association praised the move on social media on Sunday, calling it “exactly what needs to happen to restore order to campuses like Columbia and our country”.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group that describes its focus as fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate, also said on Sunday that they “appreciate the Trump administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism” and said that Khalil’s arrest “further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions”.
But the group emphasized that any deportation, revocation of a green card or visa “must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protection”.
Khalil’s arrest comes as Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to revoke the student visas of foreign students in the US who are involved in protests against the war in Gaza, and that he would imprison “agitators”.
Just a few days ago, the Trump administration announced that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University because of what it alleges is the college’s failure to address antisemitism on campus.
Columbia was central to the campus protests that broke out last spring across the US and internationally over the war in Gaza, with students demanding an end to US support for Israel and university divestment from companies linked to Israel.
At Columbia, these protests resulted in mass arrests, suspensions and the resignation of the university’s president.
One of the groups that played a key role in organizing these protests was Jewish Voice for Peace, who describe themselves as the “largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world”.
On Monday, Jonah Rubin, the senior manager of campus organizing for JVP said that that Khalil’s arrest was designed to instill terror “throughout immigrant communities and social justice movements on college campuses”.
“Even as we work to free Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia and every other college and university must stop complying with the illegal and unconstitutional orders of the Trump regime, and must start taking active measures to protect their students,” Rubin said.
Before his arrest, Khalil had told Reuters that he feared that he would be targeted by the federal government.
“Clearly Trump is using the protesters as a scapegoat for his wider agenda fighting and attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system,” he told the outlet.
A protest was scheduled for Monday afternoon in New York to demand Khalil’s release. A petition for his release has already garnered more than 800,000 signatures.
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