Gaza student protest leader held by US immigration agents

A pro-Palestinian activist who took a lead role in last year's student protests at Columbia University in New York City is being held in immigration custody in Louisiana, records suggest, after he was detained over the weekend.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents told Syrian-born Mahmoud Khalil they were revoking his student visa and green card when they detained him at his university-owned apartment in Manhattan on Saturday, his attorney said.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the former student had "led activities aligned to Hamas", without providing details. The BBC has asked the agency for further information on the allegations.

Mr Khalil's lawyer, Amy Greer, said his detention was "terrible and inexcusable" and followed "the US government's open repression of student activism and political speech". Mr Khalil has not been charged so far with any crime.

He was initially taken to an immigration holding facility in New Jersey, according to ICE's online locator. But when his wife tried to visit on Sunday, she was told he was not there, according to his lawyer.

The system indicated on Monday that Mr Khalil was being detained at a facility in the town of Jena, Louisiana.

Ms Greer said her client is a legal permanent resident with a green card and married to an American citizen, who is eight months' pregnant.

When ICE agents arrived at the campus building on Saturday, they also threatened to arrest Mr Khalil's wife, said the attorney.

Columbia said in a statement that law enforcement agents can enter university property if they produce a warrant.

In a post on social media on Monday, President Donald Trump said Mr Khalil's arrest was the first of "many to come" and that any foreign students in the US who were found to be "terrorist sympathizers" would face deportation.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a news story on X about the arrest of Mr Khalil, commenting: "We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported".

The Trump administration announced last week it was rescinding $400m (£310m) in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

Columbia was the epicentre last year of pro-Palestinian student protests nationwide against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

Mr Khalil was lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest when its protesters set up a huge tent encampment on the university lawn in protest against the Gaza war.

Some students also took control of an academic building for several hours before police entered the campus to arrest more than 100 protesters. Mr Khalil was not in that group.

He later told the BBC he had been temporarily suspended by the university, where he was a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Some Jewish students at Columbia have said that rhetoric at the demonstrations at times crossed the line into antisemitism. Other Jewish students on campus have joined the pro-Palestinian protests.

Carly, a Jewish-American graduate student at Columbia and a friend of Mr Khalil's, said he was a "very, very caring soul".

"He has been very targeted online and just seeing how he has been so misrepresented, it's very painful, as someone who knows him on a personal level," said Carly, who declined to share her name for privacy reasons.

Jacob Hamburger, a visiting assistant professor at Cornell Law School, told the BBC that US authorities sometimes detain a lawful permanent resident if they have committed certain crimes.

But he said that "targeting individual protesters just for protesting ... is highly unusual and something that we haven't seen before, even under the first Trump administration".

Speaking on Fox News, Trump's border tsar Tom Homan alleged that Mr Khalil had violated the terms of his visa by "locking down buildings and destroying property".

"We're going to send a strong message - anyone here on a foreign visa, you're given a great - a right - to come to the greatest country on earth and study in our colleges, but when you come to study you have to obey the laws of this country," he said.

The Israeli military launched its campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack into Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage.

More than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel's military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

With additional reporting from Nada Tawfik