President Donald Trump announced Monday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil — and cautioned that other "terrorist sympathizers" would meet a similar fate. (Peter Gerber)
The groups’ main goal is to "challenge the settler-colonial violence that Israel perpetrates with the support of the United States and its allies," according to an op-ed published in the Columbia Spectator in Nov. 2023.
"We reject the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency’s weaponizing of the United States’ racist immigration laws to prevent our international comrades and peers from speaking up," the group wrote. "We reject the violence of the Israel Defense Forces-trained, police-industrial complex that chokes our communities and disproportionately enacts brutality against people of color."
Khalil’s LinkedIn profile says he studied computer science at the Lebanese American University in Beirut before starting his master’s degree at Columbia in public administration in January 2023. His profile says he graduated in December 2024, although Columbia’s media affairs would not confirm Khalil’s status at the university to Fox News Digital.
Other work experience listed on Khalil’s LinkedIn profile includes completing an internship with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which assists Palestinian refugees and descendants.
UNRWA has faced scrutiny after a U.N. investigation found that UNRWA employees may have been involved in Palestinian-militant group Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The U.S. temporarily halted funding for UNRWA in January 2024 in response to the report.
The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and State Department are investigating Khalil as a possible national security threat, according to White House officials. The investigation so far has unearthed "antisemitic and hateful" posts on Khalil’s social media, and determined he organized multiple antisemitic protests on Columbia’s campus, according to the officials.
Even so, Khalil previously has made public statements backing the liberation of both the Palestinian and Jewish people, and spoke out against antisemitism.
"There is, of course, no place for antisemitism," Khalil told CNN in April 2024. "What we are witnessing is anti-Palestinian sentiment that’s taking different forms, and antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism (are) some of these forms."
Trump unveiled Khalil’s arrest Monday, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration would revoke the green cards of any Hamas supporters in the U.S. and deport them.
Khalil played a major role in the protests against Israel at Columbia University and met with university officials on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group of student groups urging the university to divest from Israel. (Stephanie Keith for Fox News Digital)
She also defended Rubio's right to revoke Khalil's green card.
"Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the secretary of state has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals who serve or are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America," Leavitt said Tuesday.
Khalil is being held at a detention facility in central Louisiana. However, a federal judge in New York blocked the Trump administration from deporting him while legal proceedings remain active.
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District Judge Jesse Furman from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is slated to hear Khalil’s case Wednesday. His attorneys have filed motions asserting that ICE violated Khalil’s constitutional rights and are also requesting his return to New York. Khalil's wife is currently eight months pregnant, according to his lawyer.
"We will vigorously be pursuing Mahmoud’s rights in court, and will continue our efforts to right this terrible and inexcusable — and calculated — wrong committed against him," Greer said.
Fox News’ Alexis McAdams and Stephany Price contributed to this report.
Diana Stancy is a politics reporter with Fox News Digital covering the White House.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/who-mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university-anti-israel-activist-ice-arrested