By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Palestinian student activist at New York’s Columbia University detained as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on some anti-Israel protesters has been moved to a federal jail for migrants in Louisiana, according to a U.S. detainee database.
The transfer to Louisiana came as lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, began their legal challenge to his arrest at his Columbia apartment building in the U.S. district court in Manhattan.
Even before Khalil’s arrest, students say federal immigration agents have been spotted at dorms and student housing around Columbia’s Manhattan campus since Thursday, a day before the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts awarded to the Ivy League school.
The federal agents have been trying to detain at least one other international student besides Khalil, according to the Student Workers of Columbia labor union.
That student, who the union declined to identify, received an email on Thursday from the U.S. consulate in their home country telling them their visa had been revoked, which has not previously been reported. The consulate gave no reason for the revocation, the union said.
The next day, three agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, entered the student’s building and tried to get into their apartment. The agents did not have a judicial warrant and so cannot enter private property without permission, the union said.
“The agents were rightfully turned away at the door,” the union said in a statement.
Spokespeople for DHS and ICE declined to answer questions about the union’s account, which Reuters was unable to independently verify, or about their recent activities at Columbia.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State said visa records are confidential under U.S. law and so the department cannot comment on individual cases.
The union said the student has asked not to be publicly identified to protect their privacy and for fear of harming their continued studies at Columbia. Asked about both Khalil and the other international student, a spokesperson for Columbia said the law school was barred by law from discussing individual students with the media.
‘CHILLING EFFECT’
On Saturday evening, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrested Khalil in front of his wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant, in their building’s lobby, telling him his student visa had been revoked, according to Amy Greer, a lawyer for Khalil.
Khalil has held a U.S. permanent residency green card since 2024, and is no longer on a student visa, Greer said in a statement. His wife showed the agents Khalil’s green card and they also threatened to arrest her, Greer said.
They then said the green card was also revoked, declining to give a reason, and handcuffed Khalil, Greer said.
Hours before his arrest, Khalil told Reuters he was concerned that the government was targeting him for his high-profile comments about what he calls an anti-war movement to the media.
Both DHS and the State Department said in weekend social media posts that Khalil was detained as part of Trump’s promised efforts to revoke visas or green cards and deport some international students who took part in the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests that have roiled college campuses.
Trump says the protests are antisemitic. Khalil and other activists note that Jewish students are among the protest organizers, and say their criticism of Israel and its U.S. government support is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Trump, a Republican, has singled out Columbia for criticism since returning to the White House in January, saying it has allowed antisemitic harassment “on and near” its campus.
Columbia says it has been working to fight antisemitism and other prejudice as it tries to restore calm to its campus after weeks of noisy protests last spring, which included tent encampments on a Columbia lawn and dozens of students seizing control of an academic building for several hours.
In the wrongful detention challenge filed in the Manhattan federal court on Sunday, known as a petition for writ of habeas corpus, Greer asked that a judge order Khalil be released and that DHS be barred from transporting him outside New York.
Greer wrote that federal agents told Khalil that they were arresting him because his student visa was revoked, making it possible that he was being held by mistake since he is a lawful permanent resident.
She said Khalil’s detention was motivated by his “criticism of U.S. institutions that support Israel,” which she said was free speech protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
“Even the threat of detention and deportation has a chilling effect on speech,” Greer wrote. The government has not yet responded to the petition.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Bill Berkrot)
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