The White House complained on Tuesday, March 11 that y is refusing to help federal agents find people being sought as part of the government's effort to deport participants in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, as the administration continued to punish the school by yanking federal research dollars. Last Friday, the Trump administration canceled $400 million on anti-Semitic grounds and opened a review of more universities.
Immigration enforcement agents on Saturday arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and Palestinian activist who played a prominent part in protests at Columbia last year. He is now facing possible deportation.
President Donald Trump has vowed additional arrests. In a briefing with reporters in Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said federal authorities have been “using intelligence” to identify other people involved in campus demonstrations critical of Israel that the administration considered to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas.”
She said Columbia had been given names and was refusing to help the Department of Homeland Security “to identify those individuals on campus.”
"As the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that,” Leavitt said.
A Columbia spokesperson didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.
Last week, the Trump administration announced it was pulling $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia, accusing the school of failing to stop antisemitism on campus. As part of those cuts, the National Institutes of Health late Monday it was cutting more than $250 million in funding, which included more than 400 grants.
X. Edward Guo, director of Columbia's Bone Bioengineering Laboratory, posted a screenshot on X of an email he received notifying him that one of his NIH awards had been canceled. “We understand this may be shocking news,” the email reads.
The university was wracked last spring by large demonstrations by students calling for an end to Israeli military action in Gaza and a recognition of Palestinians' human rights and territorial claims.
The university ultimately called in police to dismantle a protest encampment and end a student takeover of an administration building.
Khalil, 30, had been a spokesperson for the protesters. He hasn't been charged with any crimes, but Leavitt said the administration had moved to deport him under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state the power to deport a non-citizen if the government “has reasonable ground to believe” the person's presence could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
As of Tuesday, Khalil was being held at an immigration detention center in Louisiana.
Civil rights groups and Khalil's attorneys say the government is unconstitutionally using its immigration-control powers to stop him from speaking out. A federal judge set a hearing for Wednesday and ordered the government not to deport him in the meantime.
Trump, a Republican, has suggested that some protesters support , the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on 7 October, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251. Israel responded with bombardment and other military offensives that have left over 48,000 Palestinians dead in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Israel says more than 17,000 were militants.
Trump heralded Khalil's arrest as the first “of many to come,” vowing on social media to deport students the president described as engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
"This is the first arrest of many to come. 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," wrote Trump in a post on social media on Monday.
Immigration agents also tried to arrest another international student at Columbia, but they weren't allowed into an apartment where she was, according to a union representing the student.
Khalil, who finished his requirements for a Columbia master's degree in December, and protest leaders have said they are anti-war, not antisemitic. They note that some Jewish students and groups have joined the demonstrations. A Columbia disciplinary body recently told Khalil it was investigating whether he violated a new harassment policy by calling a school official “genocidal.”
Leavitt didn't detail specific wrongdoing by Khalil. But she said he had organized protests that disrupted classes, harassed Jewish students and "distributed pro-Hamas propaganda, fliers with the logo of Hamas.”
Born in Syria, Khalil is a grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a legal filing. It didn't address his citizenship but said his relatives have been displaced anew amid Syria's civil war and are now in other countries.
Khalil is married to a U.S. citizen, who is expecting their first child.
"For everyone reading this, I urge you to see Mahmoud through my eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby,” his wife, who has not been publicly identified, wrote in a statement provided by his lawyers. “I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we welcome our first child into this world.”
Following his detention, hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters staged a rally and march in New York City in protest of the Donald Trump administration's policies on the Middle East, campus protests and immigration.
Protesters on Tuesday took to the streets and marched to the City Hall in Lower Manhattan from Washington Park in the afternoon, with a dozen of them detained by the police, Xinhua news agency reported.
During the march, many protesters waved Palestinian flags and banners reading "Free Mahmoud Khalil."
"This is anti-First Amendment. Also, the university is helping ICE arrest its students, and that's wrong and unacceptable," said Ruby Martin, a protester.
Martin said she was particularly concerned that Columbia University allowed ICE on campus property to arrest students. She will also take part in another march demanding Khalil's release on Tuesday night.
"The University has been involved in this mess for a long time. It's time to stop," said Katherine Wilson, an adjunct professor at two universities in New York. She carried a sign reading "Faculty Against Fascism" at the march. According to the New York Police Department (NYPD), 12 people were arrested as participants of the march reached City Hall. A hearing against Khalil, who could face deportation, is scheduled for Wednesday.
