US Immigration agents arrest Palestinian anti-Israel activist leader amid Trump’s crackdown on Hamas sympathizers

On Saturday night, a Palestinian activist who had studied at Columbia University was arrested by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

The former graduate student, Mahmoud Khalil, was actively involved in leading the much-publicized anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University last year.

Speaking with The Associated Press, Khalil’s attorney Amy Greer said that ICE made the arrest in accordance with directions from the State Department.

“Greer said she spoke by phone with one of the ICE agents during the arrest, who said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa,” the AP reported. “Informed by the attorney that Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that instead, according to the lawyer.”

Responding to reports of the arrest, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Khalil had “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

The AP also reported that “ICE agents…also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant, Greer said.”

During President Trump’s campaign, he promised to revoke the visas of Hamas sympathizers on US college campuses.

Within the first month of his presidency, Trump also signed an executive order designed to “combat anti-Semitism.”

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said in an official fact sheet about the order. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”