Agents from US President Donald Trump’s administration arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played a prominent role in last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at New York’s Columbia University, the student workers’ labour union said yesterday.
The student, Mahmoud Khalil at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested by US Department of Homeland Security agents at his university residence on Saturday, the Student Workers of Columbia union said in a statement.
Khalil has been one of the lead negotiators with school administrators on behalf of the pro-Palestinian student protesters, some of whom set up a tent encampment on a Columbia lawn last year and seized control of an academic building for several hours in April before police entered the campus to arrest them. Khalil was not in the group that occupied the building, but was a mediator between Columbia provosts and the protesters.
Khalil’s detention appears to be one of the first efforts by Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, to fulfil his promise to seek the deportation of some foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement. The Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses.
Khalil’s wife is an American citizen and he has a permanent residency green card, the union said. He remained in detention yesterday. Khalil’s wife declined to comment through one of Khalil’s fellow students.
The Trump administration on Friday said it had cancelled government contracts and grants awarded to Columbia University worth about $400 million. The government said the cuts and the student deportation efforts are because of antisemitic harassment at and near Columbia’s Manhattan campus.
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