US Judge Stops Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian Student, from Being Deported

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student detained during Trump’s crackdown on anti-Israeli protestors, has had his deportation stopped by a US judge.

As part of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on some anti-Israel protesters, a US judge on Monday ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia, not be deported for the time being. The matter will be heard in court on Wednesday.

Trump blasted Khalil in public and promised more arrests. According to Khalil’s attorneys and a US inmate database, he has been sent to a federal jail for migrants in Louisiana to await deportation procedures.

His detention by US Department of Homeland Security officials has been condemned as an infringement on free expression by the American Civil Liberties Union, the state attorney general, and protesters in New York City’s streets.

According to a Reuters witness, there was a brief altercation between hundreds of protestors and police in lower Manhattan, during which at least one person was arrested.

A key player in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian student protest movement, which sparked school protests around the US and the world last year, Khalil was detained on Saturday after having legal permanent resident status. On social media, Trump called Khalil a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student.”

Judge Jesse Furman of the US District Court halted his deportation on Monday, “unless and until the Court orders otherwise.”

Furman was also urged by Khalil’s attorneys to mandate Khalil’s return to New York. They said that by putting Khalil so far from New York, the government was attempting to deny him access to legal representation.

On social media, Trump claimed that Khalil’s arrest “is the first of many to come.”

Trump tweeted that Khalil’s presence in the US was “contrary to national and foreign policy interests,” but the government has not stated that Khalil is facing criminal charges.

60 US universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and four University of California institutions, received letters from the Education Department on Monday warning them that their federal funding will be reduced until they addressed claims of antisemitism on campus.

Students claim federal immigration agents have been seen at student housing near Columbia’s Manhattan campus since Thursday, a day before the Trump administration declared it was rescinding $400 million in federal grants and contracts given to the university due to what it called antisemitic harassment on and near Columbia’s New York City campus. This is even before Khalil’s arrest.

The Student Workers of Columbia labor group said the federal authorities had been attempting to detain at least one other overseas student.

DHS and ICE spokespeople refused to comment on the union’s story, which Reuters was unable to independently confirm.

According to a Department of State official, the department was unable to respond since visa records are private under US law.

Amy Greer, Khalil’s attorney, said that authorities from the Department of Homeland Security arrested Khalil on Saturday night in front of his wife, a US citizen who is eight months pregnant, and informed him that his student visa had been canceled.

Greer claimed that after his wife presented the agents with Khalil’s green card, they threatened to jail her if she did not leave her lobby.

Greer added, “They handcuffed Khalil and said the green card was also revoked.”

Khalil expressed worry that he was being singled out by the government just hours before he was arrested.

Among the protest organizers are Jewish students, Khalil and other activists point out, and they claim that their criticism of Israel and the US government’s backing for it is being mistakenly interpreted as antisemitism.

With signs reading, “Jews say no to deportations,” Columbia’s Jewish professors staged a rally and news conference in support of Khalil outside a university building on Monday.

“The temperature is dropping. Marianne Hirsch, a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and the daughter of Holocaust survivors who grew up in Romania, described it as “a chill of fear and despair.”

The president and his supporters have been charged with encouraging antisemitism, despite the Trump administration’s claims of antisemitism worries.

Trump claimed that there were “good people on both sides” after a white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where some protesters brandished torches and said, “Jews will not replace us.”

Trump, who disputes accusations of antisemitism, was also criticized in 2022 for having dinner with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist.