‘First of many’: Trump after arrest of Palestinian activist

Washington: President Donald Trump warned Monday that the arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University will be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza.

Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful US resident who was a graduate student at Columbia until December, was detained Saturday by federal immigration agents in New York and flown to an immigration jail in Louisiana. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathisers from our country — never to return again.”

But a federal judge in New York City ordered Monday that Khalil not be deported while the court considered a legal challenge brought by his lawyers. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Khalil’s detention drew outrage from civil rights groups and free speech advocates, who accused the administration of using its immigration enforcement powers to squelch criticism of Israel.

He is the first person known to be detained for deportation under Trump’s promised crackdown on student protests.

Federal immigration authorities also visited a second international student at Columbia on Friday evening and attempted to take her into custody but were not allowed to enter the apartment, according to a union representing the student. Khalil, 30, had not been charged with any crime related to his activism, but Trump has argued that protesters forfeited their rights to remain in the country by protests he claimed support Hamas, the Palestinian group that attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. The US has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.