US government ‘kidnaps’ Palestinian student activist
US authorities have arrested Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent figure in last year’s Columbia University’s Gaza solidarity encampment.
Khalil was reportedly inside his university-owned apartment in Manhattan when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took him on Saturday night. They also threatened to arrest his pregnant wife, according to Khalil’s lawyer Amy Greer.
Khalil is a permanent resident of the United States; his wife is a citizen. Greer told the Associated Press that the ICE agents told her they acted on State Department orders. She also said that Mahmoud’s whereabouts are unknown.
“Given that neither Khalil’s lawyer nor his eight-months-pregnant wife knows where in the United States he is currently being held, ‘detained’ seems like a euphemism. Kidnapped seems more appropriate”, City University of New York professor Corey Robin commented.
This is the first publicly known deportation effort under President Trump’s promised crackdown on student activists.
The Republican Party’s 2024 election platform promised to “keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America” and to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again”.
Then, in a 30 January executive order, Trump warned: “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before”.
Shortly after the executive order was issued, the Justice Department assembled a multi-agency “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism”. Its first priority, according to a media release, “will be to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”.
The targeting of Mahmoud Khalil has nothing to do with “fighting antisemitism”, which has become little more than a euphemism for waging a war on Palestinians and their supporters.
Deportation Defense in the United States released the following statement. We encourage readers of Red Flag to sign the petition and share it widely.
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Demand the Immediate Release of Palestinian Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention
On the evening of March 8, 2025, Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil was detained by the Department of Homeland Security. The arrest comes on the heels of the Department of State’s announcement that it plans to deport students affiliated with pro-Palestine protests. The student, who is Palestinian, is a lawful permanent resident of the U.S.
Columbia University, which recently published a new protocol on its plans to cooperate with ICE, has targeted Khalil for his Palestinian identity and outspoken activism on multiple occasions over the last 17 months.
He served as a lead negotiator during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last spring and has frequently appeared in media interviews and press conferences. Columbia’s continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible.
Like many other Arab and Muslim students, Khalil has been the target of various Zionist harassment campaigns, fuelled by doxxing websites like Canary Mission. This racist targeting serves to instil fear in pro-Palestine activists as well as a warning to others.
Add your name to demand the immediate release of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention and a reversal to Columbia University's protocol permitting ICE on campus without a warrant.
