Who is Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel Columbia University activist ICE arrested?
President Donald Trump announced Monday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil — and cautioned that other "terrorist sympathizers" would meet a similar fate.
ICE agents arrested Khalil — who is a Palestinian raised in Syria and a permanent U.S. resident — from his university-owned apartment on the city’s Upper West Side Saturday and told him they were revoking his green card and student visa, according to Khalil's attorney, Amy Greer.
The Department of Homeland Security said in an X post that it conducted the arrest to protect U.S. national security, and claimed that Khalil "led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization."
Khalil played a major role in the protests against Israel at Columbia University and met with university officials on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group of student groups urging the university to divest from Israel, according to CNN.
ICE AGENTS ARREST ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVIST WHO LED PROTESTS ON COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY FOR MONTHS
The groups’ main goal is to "challenge the settler-colonial violence that Israel perpetrates with the support of the United States and its allies," according to an op-ed published in the Columbia Spectator in Nov. 2023.
"We reject the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency’s weaponizing of the United States’ racist immigration laws to prevent our international comrades and peers from speaking up," the group wrote. "We reject the violence of the Israel Defense Forces-trained, police-industrial complex that chokes our communities and disproportionately enacts brutality against people of color."
Khalil’s LinkedIn profile says he studied computer science at the Lebanese American University in Beirut before starting his master’s degree at Columbia in public administration in January 2023. His profile says he graduated in December 2024, although Columbia’s media affairs would not confirm Khalil’s status at the university to Fox News Digital.
Other work experience listed on Khalil’s LinkedIn profile includes completing an internship with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which assists Palestinian refugees and descendants.
UNRWA has faced scrutiny after a U.N. investigation found that UNRWA employees may have been involved in Palestinian-militant group Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The U.S. temporarily halted funding for UNRWA in January 2024 in response to the report.
The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and State Department are investigating Khalil as a possible national security threat, according to White House officials. The investigation so far has unearthed "antisemitic and hateful" posts on Khalil’s social media, and determined he organized multiple antisemitic protests on Columbia’s campus, according to the officials.
Even so, Khalil previously has made public statements backing the liberation of both the Palestinian and Jewish people, and spoke out against antisemitism.
"There is, of course, no place for antisemitism," Khalil told CNN in April 2024. "What we are witnessing is anti-Palestinian sentiment that’s taking different forms, and antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism (are) some of these forms."
Trump unveiled Khalil’s arrest Monday, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration would revoke the green cards of any Hamas supporters in the U.S. and deport them.
"Following my previously signed executive orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University," Trump posted Monday on Truth Social. "This is the first arrest of many to come."
"We will find, apprehend and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again," Trump stated. "If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests and you are not welcome here."
In response, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee labeled the move as "straight up authoritarianism" in a post on X.
Additionally, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., spearheaded a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem urging the Trump administration to release Khalil immediately. Tlaib is the first Palestinian–American woman to serve in Congress.
"Khalil has not been charged or convicted of any crime," Tlaib and other Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter released Tuesday. "We must be extremely clear: this is an attempt to criminalize political protest and is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of everyone in this country."
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the Trump administration's decision to arrest Khalil and claimed that he distributed pro-Hamas propaganda fliers on campus.
"This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans," Leavitt told reporters Tuesday at a White House press briefing, noting that on her desk were the "pro-Hamas propaganda fliers with the logo of Hamas" on them that Khalil allegedly was distributing. "We have a zero tolerance policy for siding with terrorists period."
She also defended Rubio's right to revoke Khalil's green card.
"Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the secretary of state has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals who serve or are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America," Leavitt said Tuesday.
Khalil is being held at a detention facility in central Louisiana. However, a federal judge in New York blocked the Trump administration from deporting him while legal proceedings remain active.
District Judge Jesse Furman from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is slated to hear Khalil’s case Wednesday. His attorneys have filed motions asserting that ICE violated Khalil’s constitutional rights and are also requesting his return to New York. Khalil's wife is currently eight months pregnant, according to his lawyer.
"We will vigorously be pursuing Mahmoud’s rights in court, and will continue our efforts to right this terrible and inexcusable — and calculated — wrong committed against him," Greer said.
Fox News’ Alexis McAdams and Stephany Price contributed to this report.
