President Donald Trump has said the arrest of a Columbia University graduate for taking part in pro-Palestinian protests was “the first of many to come”, stoking fears of a clampdown on free speech and campus-based activism across the US.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born US green card holder who was involved in protests last year on the university’s New York campus, was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) late on Saturday. He is being held at a processing centre in Louisiana, according to the agency’s database.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday, Mr Trump said Ice “proudly apprehended and detained” Mr Khalil, who he called “a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student”.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it,” the president added.
Mr Khalil was arrested in his Columbia-owned apartment in Manhattan on Saturday, his attorney Amy Greer told the Associated Press. She added that Ice agents also threatened to arrest Mr Khalil’s American wife, who is eight months pregnant.
“We have not been able to get any more details about why he is being detained,” Ms Greer said. “This is a clear escalation. The administration is following through on its threats.”
No charges have been filed against Mr Khalil, who as a green card holder has the permanent legal right of US residence. A judge on Monday temporarily blocked his deportation and scheduled a hearing for Wednesday in New York.
The Department of Homeland Security wrote in a post on the social media platform X that Mr Khalil, who the department identified as a “former Columbia University graduate student”, had been taken into custody.
“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation,” the department alleged.
In January, Mr Trump signed an executive order that alleged an “unrelenting barrage of discrimination” against Jewish students since the Hamas-led October 7th 2023 attack on Israel and called for “using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence”.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio wrote on X following Mr Khalil’s arrest: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in United States so they can be deported.”
Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s speech, privacy, and technology project, condemned Mr Khalil’s arrest as “unprecedented, illegal and un-American”.
He added: “The federal government is claiming the authority to deport people with deep ties to the US and revoke their green cards for advocating positions that the government opposes.”
Hundreds of protesters gathered in New York on Monday to express outrage at Mr Khalil’s detention and what they said was the Trump administration’s efforts to stifle pro-Palestinian activism in the US.
The administration this month cancelled about $400 million (€366 million) in federal grants and contracts to Columbia, alleging its “appalling inaction” over alleged harassment of Jewish students.
The Department of Education on Monday sent a letter to 60 higher education institutions warning “of potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfil their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus”.
In response to a request for comment, Columbia shared a statement from interim president Katrina Armstrong, who said that “law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including residential University buildings”.
“We are deeply committed to freedom of speech as a fundamental value that we must uphold as a community,” she added.
The university did not respond to further questions. − Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
