President Donald Trump confirmed Monday that federal immigration agents arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and recent Columbia University graduate who was taken this weekend — despite being a permanent legal resident of the United States — for helping peacefully lead antiwar protests on campus last year.
Despite not having a warrant, plainclothes agents abducted Khalil Saturday night as he returned to his university-owned apartment with his wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant. Agents claimed they were revoking Syrian-born Khalil’s green card and also threatened to detain his wife, according to a habeas corpus petition his attorney Amy Greer filed on his behalf.
Greer says that the arrest, which was confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security, violates Khalil’s First Amendment and due process rights. On Monday evening, a district judge ruled against deporting him from the U.S. pending further legal action in his case.
“This is good news, and we still have to keep fighting both to ensure that he is released and to protect free speech and oppose this broader mass deportation agenda,” Bend the Arc: Jewish Action CEO Jamie Beran said during a press conference at Columbia about Khalil’s arrest.
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