Arrest of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil 'is not about free speech,' Rubio says, following Columbia University protests

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Saturday’s arrest of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil “is not about free speech” and that federal authorities are justified in seeking his deportation.

“This is not about free speech,” Rubio told reporters. “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with.”

Rubio described Khalil, a green card holder who played a central role in anti-Israeli demonstrations at Columbia University, as a “supporter of Hamas” and said he was “complicit in what are clearly crimes” during the protests.

On Monday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting Khalil, who was arrested Saturday at his New York apartment by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman issued his ruling Monday and scheduled a Wednesday court conference to hear arguments in a wrongful detention challenge brought by Khalil’s lawyer Amy Greer.

Khalil’s arrest in New York and his detainment in Louisiana have drawn strong pushback from Americans who say the Trump administration’s plans to deport him violate his First Amendment rights.

A dozen protesters who demanded Khalil’s release from an ICE processing facility in central Louisiana were arrested Tuesday evening at a New York demonstration at City Hall Park.

Khalil, an Algerian of Palestinian ancestry who received his master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University last year, is the first known student protester to be targeted for deportation by the Trump administration.

Although he holds a U.S. permanent residency green card, Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Saturday night at his university-owned apartment in Manhattan, where he and his pregnant wife live, according to his lawyer. He has since been transferred to an ICE processing facility in Louisiana.

Action Network, a nonprofit organization, has gathered over 900,000 signatures on a petition demanding that Khalil be released.

“This racist targeting serves to instill fear in pro-Palestine activists as well as a warning to others,” the petition states.

In Manhattan on Monday, a demonstration was planned at 4 p.m. ET to protest Khalil’s detainment.

“Join us in the streets to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist and recent Columbia graduate, who was abducted from his home by DHS agents last night and is now in ICE detention,” an activist group called the People’s Forum wrote in a post on X. “Hands off our students! ICE off our campuses!”

Khalil served as a negotiator for the students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University that followed the Israeli military response to the surprise attack on Israel launched by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023. He bargained with university officials over winding down a tent encampment on campus while pressuring the college to divest itself from Israel, the Associated Press reported.

In January, President Trump signed an executive order intended to tamp down on antisemitism on college campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. On Monday, he made clear that Khalil’s arrest was part of that effort.

“Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University,” Trump wrote in a post on TruthSocial. “This is the first arrest of many to come. 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, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”

On Friday, the Trump administration announced that it was canceling $400 million in federal grants to Columbia for its failure to address antisemitism on campus, including during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Legal battle

In his own post to social media on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the administration “will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

But the legal grounds for deportations based on a student’s participation in a protest are likely to be challenged.

“I am extremely concerned about the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, an advocate and legal permanent resident of Palestinian descent,” New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. “My office is monitoring the situation, and we are in contact with his attorney.”

Khalil’s lawyer Greer said in a statement on Monday that she and her client would be contesting his detainment and deportation.

“We will vigorously be pursuing Mahmoud’s rights in court, and will continue our efforts to right this terrible and inexcusable — and calculated — wrong committed against him,” her statement read.

In its own statement, the American Civil Liberties Union blasted Khalil’s arrest.

“This arrest is unprecedented, illegal, and un-American. The federal government is claiming the authority to deport people with deep ties to the U.S. and revoke their green cards for advocating positions that the government opposes,” the statement read. “To be clear: The First Amendment protects everyone in the U.S. The government’s actions are obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate.”

What U.S. law says

While U.S. law forbids anyone from providing “material support or resources” to terrorist organizations, a designation given to Hamas by the State Department in 1997, Khalil is not accused of doing that, and has not as yet been charged with any specific crime.

In a statement posted to X, the social media platform owned by Trump adviser Elon Musk, the Department of Homeland Security said that “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and the “right of the people peaceably to assemble.”

The U.S. government can revoke permanent resident status for a number of reasons, including for criminal conviction of some crimes. Since Khalil has yet to be charged with a crime, much less convicted of one, it’s unclear whether a court would side with the Trump administration in this case.

Antisemitism and free speech

While the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement on Sunday that it applauded “the Trump Administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism,” it also sounded a cautionary note. “Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections,” the group said.

In the same statement, however, the ADL said it hoped “that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.”

The Nexus Project, a nonprofit working to combat antisemitism while promoting free speech, offered its own nuanced perspective on the controversy.

“We unequivocally oppose the use of violence and intimidation on campus,” the group said Monday in a statement. “At the same time, when legitimate political protest has been recklessly mischaracterized by the administration as support for terrorism, deporting and arresting green card holders over alleged ‘support’ of Hamas is too broad a standard to be the basis of policy.”