Court orders anti-Israel Columbia activist facing deportation to remain in detention
Hundreds protest in support of Mahmoud Khalil outside New York court amid furious backlash against Trump administration crackdown
NEW YORK — A Columbia University anti-Israel activist leader will remain in detention after an initial court hearing in New York on Wednesday that drew hundreds of protesters.
The protest organizer, Mahmoud Khalil, was detained by federal agents on Saturday outside his home in New York. The arrest was the first such detention in the Trump administration’s planned crackdown on university activists and set off furious backlash.
US District Judge Jesse Furman temporarily blocked authorities on Monday from deporting Khalil, 30, to weigh a legal challenge from his defense, and scheduled Wednesday’s hearing in lower Manhattan.
The hearing mostly focused on jurisdictional issues. Khalil, a green card holder originally from Syria, is being held in Louisiana and was not present. Khalil’s lawyers are seeking to have him returned to New York and be released under supervision.
During Wednesday’s hearing, attorney Brandon Waterman argued on behalf of the Justice Department that the venue for the deportation fight should be moved from New York City to Louisiana or New Jersey because those are the locations where Khalil has been held.
One of Khalil’s lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, told the judge that Khalil was “identified, targeted and detained” because of his advocacy for Palestinian rights and his protected speech.
Kassem also told Furman that Khalil’s legal team hasn’t had any attorney-client-protected phone calls with him. The court ordered in a legal filing that Khalil be allowed hourlong calls with his defense on Wednesday and Thursday.
Kassem said Khalil’s defense will submit an updated lawsuit on Thursday, and Furman ordered both sides to submit a joint letter on Friday about when they will submit written arguments about the legal issues in the case.
Hundreds protested outside Khalil’s hearing on Wednesday. The demonstrators, many wearing masks and keffiyehs, carried signs with images of Khalil, and chanted for his release and in support of the Palestinians.
“We want justice, you saw how? Lift the siege on Gaza now,” they chanted.
Activists and speakers at the event hailed from an array of leftist and anti-Israel groups. Speakers tied Khalil’s detention to domestic issues including affordable housing, health care and poverty.
A speaker from the Democratic Socialists of America said the US was providing funding to “exterminate whole families in Gaza” instead of “ending homelessness.”
“This is what Mahmoud is being detained for protesting,” he said.
Khalil has not been charged with a crime. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Khalil was detained for deportation due to support for the Hamas terror group. Khalil attended a protest last week at Barnard College, a Columbia affiliate, during which activists handed out pamphlets from the “Hamas media office.”
“This is not about free speech,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday when asked if Khalil’s arrest clashed with US President Donald Trump’s championing of the right to express opinions.
“This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” Rubio said.
Trump has said Khalil’s arrest is the first “of many to come,” accusing students across the country of being engaged in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity” that his administration “will not tolerate.”
Federal laws say aliens are inadmissible to the US, or “deportable,” if they engage in terrorist activities, including anyone who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.” Green card holders are considered aliens.
Khalil, who finished graduate studies at Columbia in December, was a leading organizer for the Columbia protest movement. Columbia protesters held disruptive demonstrations on campus starting soon after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, that have continued into recent weeks. Protesters have openly endorsed violence and US-designated terror groups, and Jewish and Israeli students and faculty have said the activists created a hostile and discriminatory environment. A university task force reported “crushing” discrimination against Jews and Israelis on campus.
Rhetorical support for US-designated terrorist groups is protected under the First Amendment if it is not coordinated with terrorists. Discriminatory harassment, targeted threats and incitement to imminent violence are not covered by free speech protections.
Columbia protests have also seen unlawful conduct including property damage and vandalism.
Khalil’s detention is part of a broader crackdown on anti-Israel campus activism by the Trump administration, which says the protests infringe on civil rights protections for Jews. The administration cut $400 million in funding to Columbia, warned 60 universities they are under investigation for antisemitism, and a federal antisemitism task force plans to visit 10 campuses around the country, including Columbia.
