US immigration authorities arrest Palestinian student protester at Columbia University as part of Trump’s crackdown.

NEW YORK (Reuters) — As part of President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on anti-Israel demonstrators, US immigration authorities detained a Palestinian graduate student who had played a key role in pro-Palestinian rallies at Columbia University in New York.

Mahmoud Khalil, a student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, was detained by US Department of Homeland Security officers at his campus home on Saturday evening, according to a statement from the Student Workers of Columbia union.

According to press sources, his wife is a United States citizen who is eight months pregnant, and he has a green card for permanent citizenship in the United States, the union stated. Civil rights organizations decried his detention as a violation of protected political expression.

In an interview with Reuters hours before his detention on Saturday regarding Trump’s condemnation of student demonstrators, Khalil expressed anxiety that the government was targeting him for speaking to the media.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a news item about Khalil’s arrest on social media, with the comment: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” He did not elaborate, and Rubio’s staff did not answer to queries.

In a social media statement, the Department of Homeland Security stated that Khalil was detained because he “led activities aligned with Hamas,” without going into further. DHS spokespersons did not react to Reuters’ queries.

U.S. law prohibits giving “material support or resources” to entities classified as terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the Palestinian-nationalist Islamist party that rules Gaza and controls its armed wing. That legislation does not define or ban “activities aligned to” these groups, and DHS representatives did not answer to queries regarding their charge.

Neither agency has stated whether Khalil is suspected of providing material support to Hamas or of any other crime.

Khalil’s detention is one of the first steps taken by Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, to follow through on his pledge to deport those foreign students engaging in the pro-Palestinian protest movement, which he has labeled antisemitic.The Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, followed by a US-supported Israeli assault on Gaza, sparked months of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel rallies on college campuses in the United States and across the world.

Khalil describes it as an anti-war movement that includes Jewish students and organizations that deny antisemitic claims. He was one of the primary negotiators with school administration for pro-Palestinian student demonstrators, some of whom set up tent encampments on Columbia lawns last year and took possession of an academic building for several hours before Columbia called in police to arrest them.

He was not one of the dozen or so students that took the building, but rather acted as a go-between for Columbia vice provosts and demonstrators.Some Israeli and Jewish students have described the rallies as intimidating and disruptive, and they have organized pro-Israel counter-protests.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said Khalil’s incarceration was illegal, retaliatory, and an infringement on free speech rights.

The group’s executive director, Donna Lieberman, said in a statement that the arrest “is a frightening escalation of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, and an aggressive abuse of immigration law.”

According to an online biography, Khalil grew raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and previously worked for the British embassy in Beirut. According to the ICE online prisoner locator, he was held on Sunday at a detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Khalil’s wife declined to speak via one of Khalil’s fellow pupils.

A Columbia representative stated that the school was not permitted by law to share information about specific students, but that the school was “committed to the legal rights of our students.”

Trump spokespeople did not react to queries.