The News
US immigration authorities on Saturday detained a pro-Palestine activist who played a prominent role in the student protests that rocked Columbia University in 2023 and early last year.
Mahmoud Khalil, a US permanent resident and former graduate student, has not been charged with a crime, his attorney said; his arrest comes as administration officials pledged to target non-citizens who participated in anti-Israel protests for deportation, accusing them of supporting Hamas.
“This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump said Monday.
The Trump administration has also in recent days targeted federal funding for colleges — including Columbia University — that saw pro-Palestine protests last year. Trump had threatened to halt government funding for any school that allowed “illegal protests,” sparking concern among some activists of a broad chilling effect on political speech.
SIGNALS
Trump administration could widen US campus crackdown
Targeting higher education is a “priority” for the Trump administration, according to The New York Times, with the White House particularly focused on 10 universities, including Columbia University, that were the site of pro-Palestine protests last year. Many of these schools have come under bipartisan scrutiny over antisemitism concerns — claims that some faculty leaders have strongly pushed back on — and several have taken their own steps to blunt the effects of a potential crackdown on campus rules. Some schools have stepped up lobbying efforts in Washington, while many have tightened rules on campus protests — a shift in posture that corresponded with fewer demonstrations in the fall semester last year compared to the spring.
Columbia protester’s arrest opens fraught legal questions
The arrest of former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil Saturday “marked an extraordinary move with an uncertain legal foundation,” given his residency status, The Associated Press wrote. As the White House pursues a broader immigration crackdown, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan told Fox Business the student’s detention sends a “strong message to everyone here on a foreign visa”; immigration officers said they had been directed to revoke Khalil’s status. Immigration activists decried the detention as “unconstitutional,” NBC News reported, and the New York Civil Liberties Union described it as an attack on students’ First Amendment rights: “Political speech should never be a basis for punishment, or lead to deportation.”