The United States government has commenced the process of deporting students involved in last year’s protests against Israel over its military operation in Gaza.
In April 2024, students trooped out to condemn Israel’s offensive after Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7, 2023, during the Jewish holidays of Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret.
Air and ground attacks by Hamas alongside other armed Palestinian militants caused the death and kidnapping of hundreds of civilians, including Israelis, Americans, and other nationals.
Following his reelection, President Donald Trump deplored the anti-Israel protests in schools and vowed to take punitive action against international students who joined.
The President in late January signed an executive order on additional measures to combat antisemitism, directing the Attorney General to employ appropriate civil-rights enforcement authorities.
At the weekend, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), under the Department of Homeland Security, arrested a Palestinian graduate student, Mahmoud Khalil.
Khalil was inside a university-owned residence near Columbia’s Manhattan campus when ICE agents entered his apartment Saturday night and took him into custody.
Secretary of State, Marco Rubio commented on the operation on Sunday in a post on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
Khalil, a US permanent resident with a green card, played a major role in the widespread pro-Palestinian demonstration that saw encampaments at the Columbia University in New York.
He was one of the negotiators who met with school administrators to end the protest that spread to other college campuses where participants also occupied public property.
Khalil grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and has worked for the British Embassy in Beirut. He’s reportedly being held at the ICE detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
The Trump administration has canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts for Columbia University, according to the Departments of Justice, Education, and the General Services Administration.
The Department of Education and the General Services Administration announced that the revocation was “the first round of action and additional cancellations are expected to follow.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon last week accused Columbia University of abandoning “its obligation to Jewish students” studying in the institution.
