Trump Administration Seeks to Expel a Green-Card Holder Over Student Protests

Over the weekend, the Trump administration invoked a rarely used legal statute in an effort to deport a recent Columbia University graduate and lawful U.S. permanent resident who played a leading role in campus protests against Israel last year, according to individuals familiar with the matter.

Mahmoud Khalil, 30, earned a master’s degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in December. On Saturday, immigration officers arrested him in New York and transferred him to a detention facility in Louisiana. Mr. Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, holds a green card and is married to an American citizen who is currently eight months pregnant.

On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan issued an order preventing Mr. Khalil’s removal while reviewing a petition that challenges the legality of his detention. His legal team also filed a motion requesting that the federal government return him to New York.

President Trump described Mr. Khalil’s arrest as “just the beginning.”

“We are aware that other students at Columbia and universities across the country have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, and anti-American activities. The Trump Administration will not tolerate this,” he stated on social media.

“If you support terrorism, including the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is incompatible with our national security and foreign policy interests. You are not welcome here. We expect every college and university in America to comply,” he added.

The move by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and expel Mr. Khalil has sparked significant concerns over free speech rights and the Trump administration’s intensified crackdown on immigration and higher education institutions, which the administration has accused of being excessively liberal.

Officials did not publicly specify the legal basis for the arrest. However, two individuals familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, stated that Secretary of State Marco Rubio relied on a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that grants broad authority to deport non-citizens.

According to this provision, any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”

Mr. Rubio also shared a statement from the Department of Homeland Security accusing Mr. Khalil of leading activities linked to Hamas. However, no evidence has been presented to suggest that he had direct contact with the group, took orders from it, or provided material support.

Instead, the justification for his removal is that the anti-Israel demonstrations he helped organize were allegedly antisemitic and contributed to a hostile environment for Jewish students at Columbia, according to sources familiar with the case. Mr. Rubio’s argument is that allowing Mr. Khalil to remain in the U.S. contradicts American foreign policy efforts to combat antisemitism worldwide.

“I have never seen anything like this in my years as an immigration attorney,” said Robyn Barnard, a lawyer with Human Rights First. “It is extremely troubling to see the U.S. government using its limited immigration enforcement resources to target someone simply because they disagree with his speech, despite no clear First Amendment violation.”

President Trump has taken aggressive steps to suppress campus protests and other activities that his administration deems anti-Israel or antisemitic, frequently equating the two. On Friday, the administration announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia, citing “the school’s failure to address persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

While at Columbia, Mr. Khalil served as a spokesperson and negotiator for the protest movement that erupted following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths and 250 kidnappings. In response, Israeli military operations in Gaza have reportedly killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities there.

Pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia—along with the university’s response, including calling in law enforcement to disperse demonstrators—became a flashpoint in the national debate over criticism of Israel. Some protesters used slogans such as “globalize the intifada” and called for Palestine to be “free from the river to the sea,” a phrase interpreted differently by Israelis and Palestinians, leading to accusations of antisemitism.

When asked for comment, the State Department declined to respond, while the Department of Homeland Security referred inquiries to the State Department.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump signaled his intention to expel foreign students who participated in anti-Israel demonstrations as part of a broader immigration crackdown. However, his plan was primarily framed in terms of revoking student visas, rather than deporting lawful permanent residents.

Mr. Khalil, who was born and raised in Syria, became a green-card holder in 2024 after initially entering the U.S. on a student visa in December 2022 to pursue his degree at Columbia, according to his lawyers.

His legal team stated that four plainclothes officers entered the lobby of his Columbia-owned apartment building in New York on Saturday night, identifying themselves as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents there to arrest him. Despite Mr. Khalil’s wife and attorneys informing the officers that he was a legal permanent resident, they proceeded with the arrest.

As a green-card holder, Mr. Khalil is entitled to constitutional protections, including First Amendment free speech rights and Fifth Amendment due process rights. The Trump administration’s attempt to deport him using this particular statutory provision is expected to face a constitutional challenge, legal experts said.

Amy Belsher, director of immigrants’ rights litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union, noted that she could not recall a previous instance where a secretary of state had invoked this provision since the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) was enacted in 1952.

“This marks a significant escalation,” she said. “This provision has rarely—if ever—been used before, and it is alarmingly vague. It raises serious concerns about the potential misuse of immigration law to remove individuals simply for their political views.”

Given the rarity of such an action, legal analysts are still determining the procedural implications—including whether an immigration judge would need to formally revoke Mr. Khalil’s green card and issue a removal order.

It is also unclear whether administrative removal proceedings would delay Mr. Khalil’s ability to challenge his detention in federal court. His legal team did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Additionally, there is uncertainty regarding whether legal proceedings would take place in New York, where he was arrested, or in Louisiana, where he is currently detained. Louisiana’s federal appeals court is known for its conservative leanings.

At a rally in Iowa on October 16, 2023, Mr. Trump denounced foreign students participating in anti-Israel protests, stating, “Americans are disgusted to see open support for terrorists among foreign nationals on our college campuses. They are teaching your children to hate.”

He added: “Under my administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical, anti-American, and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities, and we will send them straight back home.”

At a speech in Las Vegas on October 28, Mr. Trump vowed to “terminate the visas of all Hamas sympathizers” and “get them off our college campuses, out of our cities, and the hell out of our country.” Similarly, during a November 8 campaign event in Florida, he pledged to swiftly remove “all Hamas sympathizers” from universities, which he claimed had become “infested with radicalism.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, Mr. Rubio met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah to discuss efforts to end the war in Gaza. As a Florida senator, Mr. Rubio has been a strong advocate for Israel during the conflict. When confronted by a protester at the U.S. Capitol, he responded by saying that Hamas’s “vicious animals” were responsible for the devastation and civilian casualties caused by Israeli military actions in Gaza.