A lawful permanent resident who helped organize Palestinian protests at Columbia University remained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody Monday after his arrest over the weekend.

ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil on Saturday, initially saying they were acting on a State Department directive to revoke his student visa. Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer, told The Associated Press that when she informed ICE that he was a green card holder, officials said they were revoking that status.

A federal judge in New York issued an order late Monday to bar the Trump administration from deporting Khalil “until the Court orders otherwise.”

The arrest, without alleging a violation of immigration law, marks an attempt to escalate enforcement of the administration’s deportation power in a way that civil rights groups say violates the Constitution.

President Donald Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, that he would seek more arrests and conflated opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza with support for the terrorist group Hamas.

“This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump wrote. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again. 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.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wrote in a social media post late Sunday that the arrest was made under an executive order Trump signed targeting antisemitism.

“On March 9, 2025, in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student,” DHS wrote. “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

Trump added that his administration expects “every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply” with the executive order.

Moved to Louisiana

Greer told the AP that authorities had not been clear about the reason for the arrest.

“We have not been able to get any more details about why he is being detained,” she said. “This is a clear escalation. The administration is following through on its threats.”

Khalil, who was initially transported to a detention facility in New Jersey, was being held Monday at an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana, run by the private prison corporation GEO, according to ICE’s detainee locator system.

Khalil’s case is believed to be the first time the administration has initiated deportation proceedings against a pro-Palestinian protester after the president vowed to crack down on students who demonstrated against the war in Gaza.

Khalil, who was born in Syria, received his masters from Columbia University and helped serve as the lead negotiator between students and university officials over ending the encampments on campus grounds last spring.

Greer said that immigration agents also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant.

Columbia’s Office of Public Affairs issued a statement Sunday that confirmed ICE had made an arrest on campus.

State Department involvement

In order for a green card holder to have their status revoked, a charge of violating immigration law needs to be made and a trial before an immigration judge needs to be held before a decision is made. There are about 12.8 million lawful permanent residents, according to DHS data.

However, while the State Department itself can’t revoke a green card, under U.S. immigration law, the secretary of State can request an individual’s green card be revoked and the person face deportation if the secretary deems that individual’s presence to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday posted a news story about the arrest of Khalil, and wrote “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

The State Department did not answer an inquiry from States Newsroom asking whether Rubio had specifically requested the arrest of Khalil.

Antisemitism cited

The executive order that Trump signed in late January directs the heads of State, DHS and the Education Department to recommend ways that higher education institutions “may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”

The arrest follows a Friday decision from the Trump administration to revoke $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia University, accusing the Ivy League school of not protecting Jewish students.

Protests across college campuses erupted in response to the Israel-Hamas war in which thousands of Palestinians have been killed since it began in 2023.

Republicans have characterized the anti-war protests as antisemetic and in support of the terrorist group Hamas, rather than an outcry against civilian casualties in Gaza.

Civil rights groups in New York have condemned the arrest as violating the First Amendment’s freedom of speech protections.

“The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil — a green card holder studying in the country legally — is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights,” the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.

Last updated 6:22 p.m., Mar. 10, 2025

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