On March 8, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested and detained Mahmoud in New York City. Several social media posts made by accounts associated with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, including Trump claimed that Khalil was arrested and detained for ties to Hamas.
According to Khalil’s lawyer, Khalil is a lawful permanent resident and holds a US green card. He is a recent graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and according to CNN, served as a negotiator for protesters during pro-Palestine demonstrations on Columbia’s campus in spring 2024.
In the days following his arrest, posts on social media sites went viral sharing Khalil’s story, and protesters took to the streets of Manhattan, calling Khalil’s detention unlawful and for him to be released.
According to the statements from Khalil’s lawyers, ICE officers arrested him in the lobby of his university-owned apartment on March 8. They told him that his student visa had been canceled, despite the fact that Khalil has a green card, not a student visa. His wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant, retrieved Khalil’s green card, but officers told them that his green card status had been revoked and arrested him anyway. A lawyer not affiliated with the case told NPR that immigration judges can revoke lawful permanent resident status, but it is generally only done in cases of criminal activity.
On March 9, Khalil’s lawyers filed a petition alleging that his detainment was illegal on the grounds that lawful permanent residents are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fifth Amendment right to due process.
On March 10, Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social announcing that ICE had arrested and detained Khalil, whom he called a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student.” Trump’s post said Khalil’s arrest was the “first of many to come” and that he expected “every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply” with ICE’s actions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an X post the day after Khalid was arrested that the department would revoke visas and green cards for “Hamas supporters,” and a separate X post from the official Department of Homeland Security account claimed that “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
“ICE’s arrest and detention of [Mahmoud] follows the U.S. government’s open repression of student activism and political speech, specifically targeting students at Columbia University for criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza. The U.S. government has made clear that they will use immigration enforcement as a tool to suppress that speech.
Searching ICE’s online detainee locator system for Khalil’s name and country of birth (Syria) revealed he is currently detained at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (also known as LaSalle Detention Center) in Jena, Louisiana. The New York Times reported on March 10 that a federal judge temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation so the judge could review the petition claiming his detention was illegal.
According to CNN and The Associated Press from April 2024, Khalil was the lead negotiator for students protesting the Israel-Hamas war and Israeli occupation of Gaza, who set up encampments on the school’s campus for just over two weeks. After talks with Columbia University administrators failed, school officials called the New York Police Department to break up the encampment.
Conservative Political Action Conference host Mercedes Schlapp has suggested that the Trump administration should “deport” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) alongside Khalil, even though Tlaib is an American-born citizen.
Following ICE’s arrest and threatened deportation of Khalil — who is a legal permanent resident of the United States — for helping lead anti-war campus protests against Israel, 14 members of Congress signed a letter demanding Khalil be released. Tlaib, a member of “The Squad” and a Palestinian-American who has been outspoken about Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, was one of the signatories.
Pro-Palestine organizer Charlotte Kates, a New Jersey native and Rutgers Law School graduate was arrested by Vancouver Police in Canada with similar allegations as Khalil. But no charges were laid against her.
Also Vancouver based climate change activist on student visa Zain Haq was deported to Pakistan in January despite a sponsorship application from his Canadian wife.