Last year, federal immigration authorities detained a prominent activist who played a major role in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian student movement last year, his lawyer said Sunday.
The activist is a legal permanent resident of the United States, a major escalation of what President Trump has called anti-Semitic campus activity.
According to his LinkedIn, activist Mahmoud Khalil is a Palestinian legacy and graduated from the university's master's degree in International Affairs in December. His attorney, Amy Greer, confirmed that he was a green card holder and said the arrest would face a huge legal challenge.
“We will vigorously seek Mahmoud's rights in court and will continue our efforts to correct this horrible and inexcusable (and calculate) mistake made against him,” Ms. Greer said in a statement. She said the arrests were followed by the public suppression of student activism and political rhetoric by the U.S. government. ”
Ms. Greer said she was not sure about Mr. Harrier’s “precise whereabouts” and that he may have been transferred to Louisiana. Ms. Greer said Mr. Harrier's wife, an eight-month-old American citizen, tried to visit him at a New Jersey detention center but was told he was not locked up there.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a link to the news article on X on Sunday about Mr. Harrier’s arrest and made a broad commitment: “We will revoke visas and/or green cards from U.S. Hamas supporters in order to deport him.”
Ms Greer said the immigration agent who detained Mr Khalil told him that his student visa had been revoked, although he currently does not have such a visa. She said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigration Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, said it was rare to revoke a green card, and in most cases the holder was charged and convicted.
Ms. Mukherjee said that if the government was to revoke Mr. Khalil's green card “in revenge on his public speech, it was prohibited by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Ms. Mukherjee said, adding that she was still learning details about the case.
Jodi Ziesemer, director of the Immigration Protection Division of the New York Legal Aid Group, said the revocation process is often long. During this process, green card holders can be detained but cannot be deported.
Mr. Harrier was the fixture for protests that devoured Colombia last spring, making the Manhattan campus a national center for demonstrations against the Gaza War. He described his role as a journalist, a negotiator and spokesperson for the segregation and dismissal of Columbia’s pro-Palestine group Columbia University.
The Trump administration has made the Colombian government the first goal to punish the president for believing elite schools failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests.
On Friday, the government announced it had cancelled $400 million in grants and university contracts. In a social media post last week, Mr. Trump vowed to punish individual protesters whose administration was considered “inciting”.
“All federal funds will cease any university, school or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump wrote. “They will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country they come to. American students will be permanently expelled, or will be arrested depending on the crime.”
In a statement Sunday, Colombia administrators did not comment directly on the arrest.
“Colombia is committed to complying with all legal obligations and supporting our student groups and campus communities,” the statement said. “We are also committed to the legal rights of students and urge all members of the community to respect those rights.”
The arrests have sparked quick condemnation from some free speech groups, immigration rights activists and politicians.
Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that the detention of “McCarthyism's dependence.” She added that the arrest was a “fearing escalation of Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian remarks and the active abuse of immigration laws.”
Queens congress running for mayor Zohran Mamdani said the detention “a sign of blatant attack on the First Amendment and advancing authoritarianism under Trump.” Democratic socialist Mr Mamdani faces opposition from some pro-Israeli groups for his criticism of Israel.
“This blatantly unconstitutional bill conveys a regrettable message that the United States is no longer protected by freedom of speech,” New York Immigration Union President Murad Awawdeh said in a statement.
However, the Colombian Jewish Alumni Association has been calling on the Colombian Jewish Alumni Association, which has taken active action against pro-Palestinian protesters, praised Mr. Khalil for his detention on a series of social media, saying that Mr. Khalil had no evidence, no evidence, and was the “leader” of the chaos in Colombia.
Mr. Harrier told Reuters before his arrest on Saturday that he was worried that he would be the target of the federal government.
“Obviously, Trump uses protesters as a scapegoat for a broader agenda and attack on higher education and the Ivy League education system,” he said.
Mr. Khalil last week worked as a negotiator for protesters at Barnard College, a college affiliated with a women’s college at Columbia University that announced it would expel two students for destroying modern Israel’s curriculum. Mr. Harrier raised a megaphone to expand her voice when Barnard's President Laura Rosenbury called protesters to negotiate during a sit-in on campus.
Last spring, Mr. Harrier himself was briefly suspended for his role in the protests before the school revoked his decision. According to the online biography, he has a diplomatic background and works at the British Embassy in Beirut.
Over the past few days, critics of the Colombian protest movement have picked Mr. Khalil on social media. Shai Davidai, a vocal close professor in Colombia, was banned from campus after the university said he intimidated and harassed employees, and he called on Mr Rubio to expel Mr Khalil.
Sharon Otterman Contribution report.
