Palestinian students students arrested by immigration officials in the United States, says the lawyer

A student who played an outstanding role during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York City last year has been arrested by federal immigration officials, says his lawyer.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was the main students of the campus on the campus on the western side of Manhattan.

His lawyer, Amy Greer, told the BBC that Mr. Khalil was inside her university property home when the Immigration and Customs Application agents (ICE) arrested him on Saturday.

Columbia was the epicenter last year of protests by Pro-Palestinian students throughout the country against the war in Gaza and the support of the United States to Israel.

The BBC has contacted the Department of National Security, the State Department and the University of Columbia to comment.

Mrs. Greer said ICE agents told Khalil that her student visa had been revoked, but said her client is a permanent legal resident with a green and married card with an American citizen.

“Initially they informed us this morning that he had been transferred to an ice installation in Elizabeth, New Jersey,” Greer said.

“However, when his wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant and that ICE agents also threatened the arrest last night, tried to visit him today, they told him that he is not detained there.”

She said she does not know the current location of Mr. Khalil, although a search for online stopped location on the ICE website indicates that a person born in Syria named Mahmoud Khalil was arrested at the Elizabeth contract detention center in New Jersey.

Mrs. Greer said they had heard that Mr. Khalil could be transferred as far as Louisiana, without adding details.

The lawyer said that what happened to his client is a “terrible and inexcusable and calculated, incorrect.”

During the protests last summer, Khalil said he led negotiations with university administrators on behalf of student protesters.

They had established a huge tent camp in the university grass in protest against Gaza’s War.

Some students also took control of an academic building for several hours before the police entered the campus to arrest them. Mr. Khalil was not in that group.

He later told the BBC that he had been temporarily suspended at the University, where he is a postgraduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Khalil’s arrest follows the executive order of President Donald Trump in January warning anyone involved in “pro-andihadist protests” and “all Hamas supporters in the university campuses” would be deported.

Some Jewish students from Columbia have said that rhetoric in manifestations sometimes crosses the line towards anti -Semitism. Other Jewish students on campus have joined pro-palestinian protests.

The Trump administration announced last week that it revoked $ 400 million (£ 310 million) in federal subsidies to Columbia, accusing it of not fighting anti -Semitism on campus.

The interim president of Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, said in an email throughout the campus on Friday that “the cancellation of these funds will immediately affect the research and other critical functions of the university.”

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

According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military action.