Mahmoud Khalil, Student Leader of Protest Columbia, arrested | Israel-Palestine News of Conflict
The United States of the Immigration and Customs Agent (ICE) arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played a prominent role in last year’s Pro-Palestinian protests at the Columbia University of New York, a student worker union said on Sunday.
Student, Mahmoud Khalil at the University School of International and Public Relations, was arrested at his university resident on Saturday, according to a statement of student workers Columbia Union.
Khalil’s wife is a US citizen -a -he has a green card of permanent residence, the union said. He remained in custody on Sunday. Khalil’s wife refused to comment on one of Khalil’s fellow students.
Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press news agency that she spoke with a phone with one of the agents of ICE during his arrest, who said they were affecting the statutes of the State Department to recall Khalil’s student visa. The lawyer informed that Khalil was in the country as a permanent resident of a green card, the agent said that it was recalled, according to a lawyer.
Greer said the authorities refused to say to Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, whether she was accused of committing crime. Khalil has since been transferred to an immigration detention in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
“We couldn’t get more details about why he was detained,” Greer told AP. “This is a clear escalation. The administration follows its threats.”
The arrest seemed to be among the first known actions under the lien, President Donald Trump’s deportation of international students who joined the protests against the Israeli war in Gaza, who swallowed campuses at colleges last year. His administration claimed that the participants had taken their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas, which he now denies as a “terrorist” organization.
This move is described as an attack on the freedom of the first amendment.
Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin, was one of the leading negotiators about the school administrators of Pro-Palestinian student protesters, some of whom set up a tent on Columbia lawn last year and seized control of the academic building for several hours in April in April. Khalil was not in the group that occupied the building, but was a mediator between Columbia Provists protesters.
The protesters called for Columbia deviation from the Israel -based companies, a ceasefire and the end of a war in which nearly 50,000 Palestinians were killed and turned an enclave into ruins after non -stop bombing. Now they have provided most of the munitions for war.
Columbia said last year that she would consider accelerating some students’ requests through her investment committee.
The rights for the rights have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza – home 2.3 million people. Despite the interruption of fire from January 19, Israel blocked any assistance from Gaza from March 1, drawing a condemnation from the Groups of Rights and Agency for Assistance.
Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. On Israel and later Israeli military offensives on Gaza, they led to the months of pro-Palestinian protests that overturned US campuses at colleges.
At least 1,100 people were killed in Hamas attack and about 240 people were trapped. Most prisoners were released as part of a ceasefire offer. A new circle of tributary interviews will continue on the Cataria capital, Doha, Monday.
Target government
Columbia spokesman said the school was prohibited by the school to share information about individual students.
The Ministry of Homeland Security and State Department, which oversees the visa system in the country, did not answer the issues of news agencies. It was not immediately clear to which terrain the ice agents arrested Khalil. The ice comes under the US Ministry for Homeland Security.
In an interview with Reuters news agency a few hours before the arrest on Saturday about the criticism of Trump’s administration towards Columbia, Khalil said he was concerned that the Government had been targeting him for talking to the media.
Trump’s administration on Friday announced that she had canceled state contracts and gifts worth about $ 400 million to the Columbia University. The Government announced that reductions and efforts to deport students were due to “anti -Semitic” harassment in the campus and in the vicinity of Columbia’s Manhattan.
“What can Columbia now do to calm the congress or government now?” Before his arrest, Khalil said, noting that Columbia twice called the police to arrest protesters and discipline many pro-Palestinian students and staff, suspending some.
“They basically silenced anyone supporting Palestine in the campus and that was not enough. It is clear that Trump uses protesters as a sacrificial goat for their wider plan [of] Struggle and attacks higher education and education system Ivy League. “
In response to the announced decrease in scholarships on Friday, the temporary president Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, said the school was dedicated to the fight against anti -Semitism and “collaborated with the Federal Government to resolve their legitimate concerns.”
Protesters have denied allegations of anti -Semitism.
‘This is just the beginning’
Maryam Alwan, Palestinian American older in Columbia, who protested with Khalil, said Trump’s administration dehumanizes Palestine.
“I’m horrified for my dear friend Mahmoud, who is a legal resident, and I’m horrified that this is just the beginning,” she said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that international students who support Hamas, who have now appointed a “terrorist” organization, facing a visa recall and deportation.
Columbia issued a revised protocol on Thursday about how students and school staff should manage ICE agents who want to enter the property of a private school.
The school said that ICE agents without a court order for arrest can be allowed to enter their private ownership into “Everovisant circumstances”, which is not stated.
“By allowing the LED in Campus, Columbia is handed over to the attack of Trump administration at universities throughout the country and sacrificing international students to protect their finances,” Columbia student workers said in their statement.
Khalil lives in a university residential building near the main campus of the Columbia Campus.
