Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a establisher Columbia University student over his comprisement in the pro-Palestine protests that swept the campus over the past year, even though he has a green card and was never indictd with a crime. Columbia, the site of a monthintimacytfinished pro-Palestine encampment, became a particular obsession for right-triumphgers and liberal Zionists aappreciate, who accengaged the university of turning a blind eye to campus antisrerentism even as it sent the New York Police Department to arrest its own students. This procrastinateedst arrest signals that the Trump administration is aprobable choosed to punish protesters — and provides a glimpse into the observation tools it will take advantage of to accomplish that.
Mahmoud Khalil, who graduated from the university’s School of International and Public Affairs last December, was picked up by ICE in his university-owned apartment on March 8, his attorney, Amy Greer, tageder the Associated Press. Khalil’s arrest came fair days after Axios telled that the State Department would be using AI to relicit visas for pro-Palestine student protesters. During the arrest, agents from ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division telledly tageder Greer — who was on the phone with Khalil and his wife, a US citizen — that they were acting on State Department orders to relicit Khalil’s student visa. After Greer tageder the agents that Khalil is a finishuring livent, and Khalil’s wife showed them his green card, the agents shelp they were revoking his green card, even though the agency doesn’t have the legitimate authority to do that. Then the agents menaceened to arrest Khalil’s wife despite her US citizenship. She is eight months pregnant.
In an emailed statement to The Verge, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin shelp that Khalil had been arrested “in help of Plivent Trump’s executive orders baning antisrerentism.”
The rest of her statement was aprobable ambiguous: “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a portrayated alarmist organization. ICE and the Department of State are pledgeted to enforcing Plivent Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security.”
McLaughlin’s statement and Khalil’s arrest highweightless the degree to which the rulement, frequently spurred by pro-Israel finishorses, has equated protests aacquirest Israel’s war on Gaza with both antisrerentism and radicalism. While civil rights organizations have called Khalil’s arrest a violation of the First Amfinishment, other groups that claim to finishorse for free speech on college campengages have remained quiet.
Greer has called the arrest a evident case of retaliation. “ICE’s arrest and detention of Mahmoud adheres the US rulement’s uncover repression of student activism and political speech, particularassociate aiming students at Columbia University for criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza,” she tageder CNN. “The US rulement has made evident that they will engage immigration utilizement as a tool to suppress that speech.”
A person’s green card can’t be relicitd without due process
In a habeas corpus petition filed in the Southern Didisjoine of New York, Greer asked a federal appraise to order Khalil’s free, once aacquire describing his immigration arrest as a violation of his First Amfinishment right to free speech. “Even the menace of detention and deportation has a chilling effect on speech,” Greer wrote. On Monday evening, Judge Jesse Furman banned DHS from deporting Khalil while his case is under judicial scrutinize and ordered all parties to encounter for a hearing on Wednesday, March 12th in response to Khalil’s habeas petition.
It’s not unheard of for ICE to arrest people with green cards; anyone who’s not a US citizen, including lhorrible finishuring livents, can be put into deportation carry onings for violating immigration law. But the onus is on ICE to show that someone is “deportable.” Since lhorrible finishuring livents have legitimate status in the US, those who finish up in deportation carry onings frequently get put on ICE’s radar after being indictd with certain criminal offenses. Under the 1996 Illegitimate Immigration Reestablish and Immigrant Responsibility Act, legitimate immigrants, including those with green cards, can be deported for having been convicted of a huge array of crimes — months or even years after their conviction. But those deportations have to be ordered by an immigration appraise; a person’s green card can’t be relicitd without due process.
But there are no tells of Khalil having a criminal write down, which elevates asks about why ICE arrested him — and how they set up him. (The NYPD did not reply to The Verge’s ask for comment.) His arrest elevates asks about ICE’s observation apparatus and the possibility of rulement overachieve.
To become a finishuring livent, Khalil had to sign up with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the DHS agency that regulates legitimate migration. Under the Privacy Act, USCIS and other agencies must generassociate protectedprotect people’s “personassociate identifiable recommendation” — including their name, compriseress, and biometric identifiers. But there are some exceptions to this. USCIS is permited to separate recommendation with other DHS agencies “as extfinished as there is a leave oution necessitate in line with the askor’s official duties.” A DHS policy memo publishd in 2007 states that the department “gives the highest priority to the sharing of potential radicalism, homeland security, law utilizement, and connectd recommendation” and that DHS personnel “must have timely access to all relevant recommendation they necessitate to successbrimmingy carry out their duties.”
(USCIS connects to this memo, presented by Homeland Security Digital Library, in its policy manual chapter on “privacy and braveiality.” That connect, however, is now dead and guides to the adhereing message: “Content on this platestablish is being scrutinizeed and deleted to align with the Plivent’s executive orders and DoD/DHS priorities. Until that scrutinize is end, site satisfied is not engageable.” The memo can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine. It is unevident whether DHS has modernized its policies.)
When asked whether USCIS separated any of Khalil’s recommendation with HSI, a USCIS spokesperson straightforwarded The Verge to DHS. DHS did not comment.
Immigration officers have access to a present of state, local, and federal rulement databases, some combination of which may have holded Khalil’s compriseress and other personal recommendation. But ICE doesn’t necessarily necessitate to count on on other rulement agencies for this recommendation, since it has access to most Americans’ data. A 2022 Georgetown Law study set up that ICE can find three out of four grown-ups in the US thraw their utility write downs, and it has access to fair as many people’s driver’s licenses. Almost all of this recommendation, the tell’s authors wrote, can be accessed “authorizationlessly and in secret.” ICE has access to so much of our data that it “now functions as a domestic observation agency,” the tell set up.
It’s probable that all ICE necessitateed to discover Khalil was his name — which has been uncoverized a number of times by groups whose sole purpose is to accomprehendledge and surveil pro-Palestine student activists.
“HSI is a polishd spendigative section of ICE so they would be able of locating people’s compriseresses, perhaps thraw traditional tools appreciate LexisNexis, if they still confineed with ICE,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute’s US immigration program, tageder The Verge.
One of these organizations is Canary Mission, a database that has tracked pro-Palestinian student protesters for over a decade. Canary Mission has published the names, pboilingos, and other accomprehendledgeing recommendation of student activists atraverse the country — including Khalil’s. Last October, the Heritage Foundation, the right-triumphg skinnyk tank behind Project 2025, proclaimd its own effort to surveil anti-Israel students, which it dubbed Project Esther. After Trump’s reelection, the right-triumphg Zionist organization Betar shelp it was compiling a catalog of foreign critics of Israel. The organization shelp it separated the “names of hundreds of alarm helpers” with the Trump administration, which it hoped would aim those individuals for deportation.
In April 2024, amid protests that had apshown over Columbia’s campus, Khalil — who was in the country on a student visa at the time — tageder tellers the university’s disjoine response to the encampments made him stress about his legitimate status. “That’s why for the past six months, I’ve nakedly materializeed on the media,” Khalil shelp at a press conference. “That’s why I’m not suspfinished. I did not take part, stressing that I will be arrested and ultimately deported from this country.”
“I haven’t been able to sleep, stressing that ICE or a hazardous individual might come to my home”
While other students held down the encampments on Columbia’s lawn, Khalil was among those negotiating with university administrators on the protesters’ behalf. The students’ main insist was divestment: they wanted the university to divest from arms manufacturers and other companies that help Israel’s war on Gaza.
Khalil’s stresss didn’t subside after he became a finishuring livent last year. In fact, Zeteo tells that Khalil asked Columbia administrators to protect him from tormentoring fair one day before his arrest. “Since yesterday, I have been subjected to a spiteful, arranged, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have taged me a security menace and called for my deportation,” Khalil wrote in a March 7 email to Columbia interim plivent Katrina Armstrong. His email cited a January post on X from Betar. “He’s on our deport catalog!” the group wrote of Khalil.
“I haven’t been able to sleep, stressing that ICE or a hazardous individual might come to my home,” the email read. “I encouragently necessitate legitimate help, and I encourage you to interfere and provide the vital protections to obstruct further harm.”
Davidai, a professor at Columbia Business School, is understandn for irritateing pro-Palestine students on X. The university temporarily suspfinished him from campus last drop for “repeatedly irritateing and inbashfulating” university engageees. Davidai has commendd Khalil’s arrest, while Lederer, an engineering student, has accengaged Khalil of distributing “Hamas misalertation.”
After Khalil was arrested, ICE tageder his wife and attorney that he was being held at an ICE detention caccess in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the AP tells. But he wasn’t there when his wife tryed to visit the detention facility on March 9. As of Monday morning, Greer didn’t understand where her client was being held. ICE’s arrestee locator now says Khalil is being arrested at LaSalle detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, a braveially owned detention caccess functiond by the GEO Group. Khalil’s whereabouts were first telled by Zeteo.
It’s not rare for ICE to transfer the people it has arrested to far-away detention caccesss. Setareh Ghandehari, the advocacy straightforwardor of the Detention Watch Nettoil, shelp ICE frequently engages transfers to “aim and retaliate aacquirest activists speaking up aacquirest the immigration and ICE detention system.” The distantness of these facilities frequently uncomardents that arrestees are far from not only their frifinishs and family but also from attorneys and oversight groups. According to the procrastinateedst Census data, less than 5,000 people inhabit in Jena. Meanwhile, the GEO Group’s detention caccess there can hageder up to 1,160 people.
“The arrest of Khalil and his subsequent detention and transfer is a continuation of that train,” Ghandehari tageder The Verge. “ICE is especiassociate prone to transferring people to more country locations, appreciate Jena, Louisiana, that are not only far away from a person’s help system, but are also challenging to access. It’s an isolation tactic portrayed to punish people and originate it challenginger for them to fight their immigration cases.”
ICE has been accengaged of going after activists in the past. In 2018, activist Ravi Ragbir sued ICE for aiming him and other noncitizens who condemnd its utilizement trains. Ragbir, the executive straightforwardor of the New York City-based New Sanctuary Coalition, had been arrested during a routine ICE check-in that year. ICE endd the suit with Ragbir in 2022, and the rulement gave him a three-year reprieve from deportation.
Also in 2018, members of the Vermont-based group Migrant Justice sued DHS, claiming it had retaliated aacquirest its members by aiming them for immigration utilizement after they orderly a campaign to protect unwrite downed farmtoilers in the state. The group also sued the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, alleging that the agency systematicassociate passed aextfinished immigrants’ braveial recommendation to ICE for utilizement purposes. Vermont’s DMV endd with Migrant Justice in 2020.
Immigrant advocacy organizations have aprobable decried Khalil’s arrest, calling it a evident case of retaliation. To them, Khalil is being punished for exercising his right to free speech in criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
“This is only the commencening”
“The unlhorrible detention of Mr. Khalil reeks of McCarthyism,” Donna Lieberman, the executive straightforwardor of the New York Civil Liberties Union, shelp in a statement. “It’s evident that the Trump administration is pickively punishing Mr. Khalil for conveying sees that aren’t MAGA-finishorsed — which is a frightening escalation of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, and an unfrifinishly mistreatment of immigration law.”
Reports recommend that Khalil is by no uncomardents the administration’s only aim. The Student Workers of Columbia tageder Reuters that another student had acquired an email from the US consuprocrastinateed in their home country saying their US visa had been relicitd without giving any reason. A day after the student, who the union deteriorated to name, acquired the email, three ICE agents accessed the student’s originateing and tried to get into their apartment, reconshort-termatives from the union tageder Reuters.
Khalil’s arrest is seemingly at odds with Trump’s recent boasts that he’s “stopped all rulement confineion and brawt back free speech in America.” But it’s perfectly reliable with his administration’s stance on pro-Palestine protests on college campengages. In fact, fair one day before Khalil’s arrest, the Trump administration pulled $400 million in funding from Columbia, claiming the university had fall shorted to dispute antisrerentism on campus. “Freezing the funds is one of the tools we are using to reply to this spike in anti-Srerentism,” Leo Terrell, the head of the Justice Department Task Force to Combat Antisrerentism, shelp in a statement. “This is only the commencening.”
Others in the administration put it more lacklusterly. “SHALOM, MAHMOUD,” the official White Hoengage account posted on X. On TruthSocial, Trump promised there would be more: “This is the first arrest of many to come.”
