White House pressures Columbia University as it seeks to deport
pro-Palestinian activists
[March 12, 2025]
NEW YORK (AP) — The White House complained Tuesday that
Columbia University is refusing to help federal agents find people being
sought as part of the government’s effort to deport participants in
pro-Palestinian demonstrations, as the administration continued to
punish the school by yanking federal research dollars.
Immigration enforcement agents on Saturday arrested and detained Mahmoud
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and Palestinian activist who played a
prominent part in protests at Columbia last year. He is now facing
possible deportation.
President Donald Trump has vowed additional arrests. In a briefing with
reporters in Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt
said federal authorities have been “using intelligence” to identify
other people involved in campus demonstrations critical of Israel that
the administration considered to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas.”
She said Columbia had been given names and was refusing to help the
Department of Homeland Security “to identify those individuals on
campus.”
"As the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is
not going to tolerate that,” Leavitt said.
A spokesperson for Columbia University did not directly respond to a
message seeking comment on the administration’s response but referred
The Associated Press to a letter sent to students Monday by Interim
President Katrina Armstrong.
“We will follow the law, as has always been the case, and rumors
suggesting that any member of Columbia leadership requested the presence
of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on or near
campus are false,” the letter stated.
Last week, the Trump administration announced it was pulling $400
million in grants and contracts from Columbia, accusing the school of
failing to stop antisemitism on campus. As part of those cuts, the
National Institutes of Health late Monday said it was cutting more than
$250 million in funding, which included more than 400 grants.
X. Edward Guo, director of Columbia’s Bone Bioengineering Laboratory,
posted a screenshot on X of an email he received notifying him that one
of his NIH awards had been canceled. “We understand this may be shocking
news,” the email reads.
The university was wracked last spring by large demonstrations by
students calling for an end to Israeli military action in Gaza and a
recognition of Palestinians' human rights and territorial claims. The
university ultimately called in police to dismantle a protest encampment
and end a student takeover of an administration building.
Khalil, 30, had been a spokesperson for the protesters. He hasn't been
charged with any crimes, but Leavitt said the administration had moved
to deport him under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act
that gives the secretary of state the power to deport a non-citizen if
the government “has reasonable ground to believe” the person’s presence
could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United
States.”
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Protesters march on campus against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at
UC Berkeley on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif.
(Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
As of Tuesday, Khalil was being held at an immigration detention
center in Louisiana.
Civil rights groups and Khalil’s attorneys say the government is
unconstitutionally using its immigration-control powers to stop him
from speaking out. A federal judge set a hearing for Wednesday and
ordered the government not to deport him in the meantime.
Trump, a Republican, has suggested that some protesters support
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct.
7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251. Israel responded
with bombardment and other military offensives that have left over
48,000 Palestinians dead in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Israel says more than
17,000 were militants.
Trump heralded Khalil’s arrest as the first “of many to come,”
vowing on social media to deport students the president described as
engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
Immigration agents also tried to arrest another international
student at Columbia, but they weren’t allowed into an apartment
where she was, according to a union representing the student.
Khalil, who finished his requirements for a Columbia master's degree
in December, and protest leaders have said they are anti-war, not
antisemitic. They note that some Jewish students and groups have
joined the demonstrations. A Columbia disciplinary body recently
told Khalil it was investigating whether he violated a new
harassment policy by calling a school official “genocidal.”
Leavitt didn't detail specific wrongdoing by Khalil. But she said he
had organized protests that disrupted classes, harassed Jewish
students and "distributed pro-Hamas propaganda, fliers with the logo
of Hamas.”
Born in Syria, Khalil is a grandson of Palestinians who were forced
to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a legal filing. It
didn't address his citizenship but said his relatives have been
displaced anew amid Syria's civil war and are now in other
countries.
Khalil is married to a U.S. citizen, who is expecting their first
child.
"For everyone reading this, I urge you to see Mahmoud through my
eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby,” his
wife, who has not been publicly identified, wrote in a statement
provided by his lawyers. “I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so
he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we
welcome our first child into this world.”
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