WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Summer Lee and other Democrats on Tuesday demanded that the Department of Homeland Security release Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student arrested by federal immigration authorities Saturday.
Detained “in support of President [Donald] Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism,” according to DHS, as the administration cracks down on campuses over pro-Palestinian protests and diversity policies, Ms. Lee and 13 other House Democrats said they were “horrified by the illegal abduction and now indefinite detention” of Mr. Khalil, who is a permanent U.S. resident with a green card.
“We unequivocally demand his immediate release from DHS custody,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Tuesday. “Khalil is a legal permanent resident and married to a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant.”
The push from progressive members of the House — including several such as Ms. Lee who have been critical of Israeli policy — places front and center Trump’s strong stance on protests and aggressive detention and deportation policies. The lawmakers and some experts accuse the administration of unconstitutionally attacking free speech and immigrant rights.
On Monday, a federal judge ordered the government not to deport Mr. Khalil while a petition challenging his detention is reviewed, the New York Times reported.
The lawmakers said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Mr. Khalil without demonstrating a warrant or any filed charges. The ICE agents first said the State Department had revoked his student visa, but after his attorney told the agents during the arrest that he was a permanent resident and green card holder, the agents said “his green card was being revoked instead,” the lawmakers wrote.
They and Mr. Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer, say the agents threatened to arrest Khalil’s pregnant wife as well. Mr. Khalil has not been allowed to see his counsel or his wife, and has been transferred to an ICE facility in Louisiana after a filing of a habeas corpus petition on his behalf in New York following his arrest, the lawmakers wrote, arguing his constitutional rights have been violated.
“Khalil has not been charged or convicted of any crime,” they wrote. “As the Trump administration proudly admits, he was targeted solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader and negotiator for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia University campus ... This illegal political justification has been stated clearly by figures throughout the administration, including the president himself.”
The lawmakers said Mr. Khalil was “protesting the Israeli government's brutal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza and his university's complicity in this oppression.”
Trump suggested Monday that Mr. Khalil’s arrest was just the first of many.
“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 on social media. “We will find, apprehend and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X that, “Those who support designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, threaten our national security. The United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists. Violators of U.S. law — including international students — face visa denial or revocation and deportation.”
But Ms. Lee and the other Democratic lawmakers say Mr. Khalil’s arrest amounts to a warning.
“This is an attempt to criminalize political protest and is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of everyone in this country,” they wrote. “Khalil's arrest is an act of anti-Palestinian racism intended to silence the Palestine solidarity movement in this country, but this lawless abuse of power and political repression is a threat to all Americans ... this authoritarian playbook will be applied to any and all opposition to his undemocratic agenda.”
The lawmakers also called on universities throughout the U.S. to “protect their students from this vile assault on free thought and expression.”
Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., in a post on X said he agrees 100% with Mr. Rubio: “if you support terrorist organizations you have no place in our great nation.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa, expressed support for the Trump administration’s slashing of $400 million federal funding to Columbia. The senator alleged the Ivy League university had “let antisemitism run amok to cater to lunatic fringe and paid provocateurs. Leadership allowed those assholes to take over the campus and terrorize Jewish students. Now Columbia pays for its failure and I support that.”
The administration has not laid out charges against Mr. Khalil or any ties with Hamas.
The terrorist organization killed almost 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage in an attack on Oct. 7, 2023. The Associated Press reported in January that more than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israel in the year-plus since. The Israeli military said at the time that 17,000 militants had been killed, and it blamed Hamas for using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
The Times reported that the administration views the protests led by Mr. Khalil to be antisemitic, creating a hostile environment for Jewish students.
Mr. Khalil himself previously told CNN that he did not participate directly in student encampments because he did not want to risk his student visa at the time, and he disavowed antisemitism. “There is, of course, no place for antisemitism,” he said.
Human Rights First, a nonpartisan human rights nonprofit, condemned Mr. Khalil’s detention, calling it “a clear attempt to suppress pro-Palestinian voices.”
Make the Road States, an immigration-focused organizing group that includes Pennsylvania and four other states, called the arrest deeply troubling in a statement shared with the Post-Gazette.
“Mr. Khalil has been detained despite being a legal permanent resident, which officials are threatening to strip away — a direct flouting of this country’s immigration laws,” said Theo Oshiro, the group’s co-executive director. “Equally disturbing is the infringement of Mr. Khalil’s First Amendment rights and the broader implications for free speech and peaceful activism in this country.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday that she did not have an estimate on how many students faced arrest over antisemitic protests. But she said DHS is using “intelligence to identify individuals at our nation’s colleges and universities” who have engaged in “anti-American, antisemitic, pro-Hamas” activity that “will not be tolerated.”
She said the agency was focused on “especially illegal activity,” but cited Trump’s executive orders on antisemitism.
She said Columbia was refusing to help the federal government with students involved in “other pro-Hamas activity,” but that the administration expects “all American universities to comply with this policy.”
First Published: March 11, 2025, 6:36 p.m.
Updated: March 12, 2025, 2:22 p.m.
