Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest will not deter the Pro-Palestine student movement

By DeskReporter

March 12, 2025

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Activism

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StudentNation

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March 12, 2025

The reverberations of Khalil’s arrest are being felt beyond Columbia University’s campus.

A protest on the steps of Columbia University’s Low Library advocating for Mahmoud Khalil’s immediate release.

(Lara-Nour Walton)

This story was produced for StudentNation, a program of the Nation Fund for Independent Journalism, which is dedicated to highlighting the best of student journalism. For more Student Nation, check out our archive or learn more about the program here. StudentNation is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation. If you’re a student and you have an article idea, please send pitches and questions to [email protected].

< p class="has-drop-cap">Around half past 8 on Saturday evening, < a href="http://thenation.com/article/activism/trump-arrest-detention-mahmoud-khalil/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mahmoud Khalil was returning home from an Iftar dinner. As his < a href="https://x.com/prem_thakker/status/1899626126449721706" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">eight-month-pregnant wife accompanied him into their Columbia-owned New York City apartment, < a href="https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/mahmoud-khalil-detained-ice-agent-honored-trump" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">four plainclothes agents with the Department of Homeland Security intercepted them. Despite his lawful permanent resident status, DHS agents claimed that they were revoking his visa on State Department orders. When Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate and campus activist against Israel’s war on Gaza who is of Palestinian descent, informed agents that he in fact had a green card, they < a href="https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/dhs-detains-columbia-university-student-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pivoted to say that they were revoking that instead. Then he was detained. DHS did not produce a < a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-demands-answers-trump-admin-officials-arrest-mahmoud-khalil" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">warrant to justify his arrest.

< p>For < a href="https://x.com/jangelooff/status/1898899802546721258" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">24 hours, neither Khalil’s wife nor attorney knew of his whereabouts. It has since < a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/03/11/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-ice-louisiana/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">surfaced that he is being held in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, part of what the ACLU has < a href="https://www.aclu.org/documents/inside-the-black-hole" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dubbed the “Black Hole” because of the human rights abuses that immigrants have routinely faced in the state’s ICE jails.

< p>Many have called his detainment an “< a href="https://www.instagram.com/palestinianyouthmovement/p/DHCdDqKAzJf/?img_index=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">abduction,” coming on the heels of the Trump administration’s < a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-takes-forceful-and-unprecedented-steps-to-combat-anti-semitism/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">effort to quash the free speech of those critical of Israel—a state that < a href="https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/you-feel-like-you-are-subhuman-israels-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Amnesty International and the < a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocide-gaza-palestinians-south-africa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">International Court of Justice say is committing a genocide against the Palestinian people. Columbia has been one of the president’s main targets since he took office. Just this Friday, Trump < a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2025/03/07/doj-hhs-ed-gsa-announce-initial-cancellation-grants-contracts-columbia-university-worth-400-million.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cut $400 million in federal funding to the university, claiming that it allowed “illegal protests” on campus and failed “to protect students from anti-Semitic harassment.” It is important to note that the administration < a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/06/17/israel-columbia-antisemitism-task-force-zionism/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, a conflation that could potentially, < a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/content/war-speech-episode-3-transcript" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to legal experts, “violate the First Amendment.”

< p>On March 6, Canary Mission, a website that publicizes the personal information of those it considers anti-Israel or antisemitic, < a href="https://www.instagram.com/canarymission/reel/DG3FdjiNJ5R/?api=%E9%A9%AC%E6%9D%A5%E8%A5%BF%E4%BA%9A%E4%B8%9C%E7%94%B2%E5%90%8C%E5%9F%8E%E7%BA¦ WhatsApp%EF%BC%AE601167898268%E5%8F¯%E4%B8Å¡%E9ª«%E5Šä�¡ï¦候ç¦ä��æ–¯%E9ª�‰%E5°�.tnzo&hl=cs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">posted footage of Khalil on its Instagram negotiating with Barnard administrators during last week’s < a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/03/05/nypd-begins-arrests-at-milstein-sit-in/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sit-in. The video was titled “SUSPECTED FOREIGN NATIONAL ALERT.” The day before Khalil was detained, the X account “Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus at Columbia U” < a href="https://x.com/CampusJewHate/status/1898081410415837481" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “revoke Mahmoud Khalil’s visa.” Once news of Khalil’s detainment hit the press, Rubio < a href="https://x.com/marcorubio/status/1898858967532441945" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote, “

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