This article was first published on March 9, 2025, at 8:06 p.m. EST and was updated on March 10.

The article below was first published on March 9, 2025, by Drop Site, an online news publication operating on the Substack platform.

It reports on the arrest on Saturday night, March 8, of Mahmoud Khalil by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents.

Khalil just graduated from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York City. He is among the thousands of students who have protested the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the Palestinian people and have denounced the disciplinary measures — including suspensions and expulsions — university authorities have meted out against such students to clamp down on pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Khalil is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin and a legal immigrant to the United States. He is married to a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant. Khalil holds a green card, which certifies permanent resident status with the right to live and work in this country.

But, as the article below reports, “according to [Writers Against the War on Gaza] WAWOG, the DHS agents told Khalil that the U.S. Department of State had revoked his student visa. The group said this was ‘despite the fact that he has a green card, not a visa, and is a lawful permanent resident.’”

Khalil, 30, is now held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana. The U.S. State Department is in the process of revoking his green card and deporting him.

On March 10, a federal judge in Manhattan ordered the government not to remove Khalil from the United States while the judge reviewed a petition challenging the legality of his detention. Khalil’s lawyers also filed a motion the same day asking the judge to compel the federal government to transfer him back to New York.

Khalil was apparently targeted as part of a crackdown on democratic rights unleashed by the Trump administration, which has opponents of the Israeli war on Gaza in its sights.

As World-Outlook recently reported in Trump’s 2^nd Term: One-Man Rule & the Danger of Incipient Fascism (II), “Trump has launched a dangerous assault on democratic rights, under the guise of ‘combating antisemitism,’ by issuing another executive order that can target any opponent of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, he makes excuses for the overt antisemitism of his most reactionary supporters.”

Trump said on March 10 that Khalil’s case was “the first arrest of many to come,” making it clear this could be a test case for a much broader assault on free speech and other democratic rights.

“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said on social media the same day.

World-Outlook is publishing the article that follows for the information of our readers.

We also encourage public protests demanding Khalil’s immediate release. A letter writing campaign is already under way, with about 2 million letters already sent. You can add your voice by clicking on this link.

The headline, subhead, text, and photo below are taken from the original.

— World-Outlook editors

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BREAKING: DHS Detains Lead Negotiator of Columbia Gaza Solidarity Encampment After Online Campaign by Pro-Israel Groups

Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained on Saturday, is being held at an ICE detention facility.

By Meghnad Bose

Mar 09, 2025

NEW YORK CITY — On Saturday night [March 8], Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents entered a student residential building at Columbia University in uptown New York and detained Mahmoud Khalil, one of the lead negotiators on behalf of pro-Palestine protesters at 2024’s Gaza solidarity encampment. In a sweeping attack on the First Amendment, the Trump administration said this week it would begin revoking visas of “Hamas sympathizers,” specifically citing Columbia University students. The detention followed a two-day targeted online campaign against Khalil by pro-Israel groups and individuals, including Columbia’s high-profile pro-Israel professor, Shai Davidai.

Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin and an American green-card holder, was detained by DHS officials around half past eight as he was entering the Columbia residential building he lives in. He was returning from an iftar, breaking the day-long fast observed by many Muslims during the month of Ramadan.

Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, was with him at the time. A statement by the pro-Palestine group Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) stated that he was “abducted and detained without the physical demonstration of a warrant or officially filed charges.” At the time of writing, Khalil is still being detained at a DHS facility in New Jersey, according to a database for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

According to WAWOG, the DHS agents told Khalil that the U.S. Department of State had revoked his student visa. The group said this was “despite the fact that he has a green card, not a visa, and is a lawful permanent resident.”

In response to a request for comment from Drop Site, the DHS stated, “You need to reach out to the White House.”

Columbia University directed Drop Site to a statement on their website. The statement, dated March 9, reads, “There have been reports of ICE around campus. Columbia has and will continue to follow the law. Consistent with our longstanding practice and the practice of cities and institutions throughout the country, law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including University buildings. Columbia is committed to complying with all legal obligations and supporting our student body and campus community.”

Khalil’s wife was unlocking the door to the building when “two plainclothes DHS agents forced their way in behind them.” They initially refused to identify themselves, she reported but then threatened Khalil’s wife that if she remained with him, she would be detained too.

On Wednesday, Khalil was among the protesters at a sit-in at Milstein Library in Columbia University’s Barnard College, protesting the recent expulsion of three Barnard students over pro-Palestine activism. New York Police Department officers later arrested nine individuals from the same protest — the third round of arrests of pro-Palestine demonstrators on Columbia’s campuses in the past year.

Over the course of Thursday and Friday, several prominent pro-Israel groups and individuals published a series of tweets targeting Khalil, mentioning his presence at the sit-in on Wednesday and his history as a lead negotiator with Columbia in April 2024, and demanded that the Trump administration act strongly against him by revoking his visa and deporting him. They tagged President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and US Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Shai Davidai, a professor at Columbia Business School, who was suspended from entering Columbia’s Morningside campus in 2024 following allegations of misconduct against students and staff of the university, tweeted, “Illegally taking over a college in which you are not even enrolled and distributing terrorist propaganda should be a deportable offense, no? Because that’s what Mahmoud Khalil from @ColumbiaSJP did yesterday at @BarnardCollege”.

“Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus at Columbia U” — an account on X with more than 20,000 followers — tweeted, “Secretary Rubio (@SecRubio), please revoke Mahmoud Khalil’s visa!” On March 6, Rubio had tweeted that “those who support designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, threaten our national security” and that such “violators of U.S law — including international students — face visa denial or revocation, and deportation.”

A pro-Israel student protester at Columbia shared that Khalil was “known to have been on a foreign visa last year” before stating that he “recently helped illegally take over a library building”. Canary Mission posted against Khalil on their social media profiles with the caption “SUSPECTED FOREIGN NATIONAL ALERT”.

A post on Instagram by “Documenting Jew Hatred On Campus” and another account, “Jews In School,” referred to Khalil as a “foreign student agitator at Columbia University” and “the poster child for demonstrating that the Trump administration is serious about revoking visas of foreign students who support terrorism, foment hatred, and harass Jews.”

Saturday’s actions against Khalil also took place against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s decision to cancel around $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University. The White House has claimed that Columbia’s “failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment” was the reason for this move.

Columbia University recently set up an office that is secretly investigating its students for political statements about Israel, Drop Site News reported this week, and is requiring students to sign non-disclosure agreements to view the evidence being brought against them. On Friday evening, Columbia University’s Interim President Katrina Armstrong said that the university has reworked leadership structures to “more swiftly respond to incidents of antisemitism and discrimination on campus.”

Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, had previously stated that he was accused by the university’s office of misconduct just weeks before his graduation in December 2024. “I have around 13 allegations against me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” he told the Associated Press in an article published on March 6.

After refusing to sign the nondisclosure agreement, Khalil reportedly said the university put a hold on his transcript and threatened to block him from graduating. But when he appealed the decision through a lawyer, he said, they eventually backed down.

Meghnad Bose is an award-winning investigative journalist based in New York City.

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