US court temporarily blocks effort to deport Gaza protest leader

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deport the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested this weekend by immigration agents.

Mr. Khalil, a graduate of Columbia University and a permanent American resident, played a key role in the Gaza War demonstrations of last year on the Ivy League campus in New York.

The arrest is part of President Donald Trump’s commitment to repair pro-Palestinian demonstrators on university campuses, in what he called “the first arrest of many to come”.

The demonstrators met in New York on Monday afternoon, pushing for the release of Mr. Khalil and condemning the actions of the Trump administration.

A raging crowd of Palestinian flags gathered on the Foley square in Lower Manhattan shortly after it was reported that the United States had tried to expel Khalil. The demonstrators then walked south to the town hall. At least one person has been detained.

“We are faced with a horrible reality that our own student, a member of the Columbia community, has become a political prisoner here in the United States,” said professor of the University of Columbia, Michael Thaddeus, in a statement.

The judge set a hearing for Wednesday when Mr. Khalil is to appear, according to court documents.

Immigration and customs’ application agents (ICE) informed Mr. Khalil that they revoked his student visa and his green card by winning on Saturday, his lawyer said.

The Ministry of Internal Security (DHS) accused the former student of “management activities aligned on Hamas”, but has provided no details. The BBC asked the agency more information on allegations.

Trump previously said that foreign students proved to be “terrorist sympathizers” would face the expulsion. Mr. Khalil is the first detainee known under this policy.

His lawyer, Amy Greer, condemned her detention as “terrible and inexcusable”, describing him as “the open repression of the American government of student activism and political discourse”.

Mr. Khalil, a Palestinian refugee born in Syria, was not accused of any crime.

The ICE agents arrested him in his Manhattan apartment belonging to the university and initially placed him in an immigration establishment in New Jersey before transferring him to a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, according to the Ice Archives.

His lawyer says Ice also threatened to stop his wife, an eight -month -old American citizen. When she tried to visit her in New Jersey, officials told her that he was not there.

Columbia University said the police can enter the property of the campus with a mandate, but have denied that university management had invited ice agents.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed the position of the administration, publishing on X: “We will revoke the visas and / or the green cards of Hamas supporters in America so that they can be expelled.”

The Trump administration announced last week that it had canceled $ 400 million (310 million pounds sterling) in federal subsidies in Columbia, accusing it of not having fought against anti -Semitism on the campus.

Columbia was the epicenter last year of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations nationally against the war in Gaza and supporting the United States for Israel.

Mr. Khalil was a main negotiator for the disinvestment of apartheid from Columbia University when his demonstrators set up a huge tent camp on the university lawn to protest the Gaza War.

He later told the BBC that he was temporarily suspended by the University, where he was a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Donna Lieberman, the president of the New York Civil Liberté Union, described her expulsion as “targeted reprisals and an extreme attack on the first amendment”.

New York Prosecutor General Letitia James said that she was “extremely worried” and watched the case.

Some Jewish students from Columbia claim that the rhetoric of protest has sometimes crossed the line in anti-Semitism, while others have joined Pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Carly, a Jewish-American graduate student in Columbia and a friend of Mr. Khalil, told the BBC that the prisoner was a “very, very attentive soul”.

“He was very targeted online and just seeing how he was so distorted, it is very painful, as someone who knows him at a personal level,” said Carly, who refused to share his family name for reasons of confidentiality.

Speaking on Fox News, the Tsar on the border of Trump, Tom Homan, alleged that Mr. Khalil had violated the terms of his visa by “locking the buildings and destroying goods”.

The Israeli army launched its campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross -border attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which left around 1,200 dead and 251 hostage.

According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza were killed in Israeli military action.

With additional reports from Nada Tawfik