Pro-Hamas Columbia student worked for UNRWA; accused of “providing material support” to Hamas
Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student staying in the US as a green-card permanent resident, had his student visa revoked by the State Department and was arrested on Saturday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. He has not yet been charged with a crime.
Khalil was involved in an “unauthorized” march held shortly after October 7th, which “glorified” the Hamas-led massacres. He served as a “lead negotiator” between anti-Israel students who committed illegal acts, including assaulting custodial workers during their takeovers of campus buildings and the Columbia administration.
He was also among the pro-Hamas protesters being investigated by a new disciplinary body at Columbia University focused on harassment and discrimination complaints.
The arrest represents President Trump keeping his campaign promise to deport international students who participated in pro-Hamas/antisemitic protests.
Normally, green-card holders can only be stripped of their status if they have been convicted of a crime but a legal permanent resident can be expelled for providing material support to a terrorist group, in which case the government doesn’t need a criminal conviction to bring deportation charges.
The federal government’s argument depends on Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides that migrants in the US may be removed if the Secretary of State deems that their presence is incompatible with foreign policy. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued a charging document claiming that he “has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
The New York Times recently reported that the state department’s rationale is that US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world will be adversely affected by Khalil’s continued presence in the US.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security accused Khalil of leading “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
The White House said on Tuesday that Khalil organized protests where pro-Hamas propaganda was distributed.
“This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary.
He is being held in a detention facility in Louisiana, where he faces deportation.
Khalil is a Syrian-born Palestinian who is also a citizen of Algeria who fled to Lebanon after a civil war broke out in Syria. In Lebanon, he pursued an undergraduate degree in computer science at the Lebanese American University in Beirut.
He worked for the British government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, managing the Chevening Scholarship from the British embassy in Beirut and supporting diplomats with his language skills and local knowledge
From June through November of 2023, he was a political affairs officer with UNRWA, which has extensive ties to Hamas.
Khalil moved to the US on a student visa in December 2022 to learn for a master’s degree in public administration at Columbia. Heil became a permanent US resident after marrying his wife, Noor Abdalla, a 28-year-old US citizen and dentist, in 2023. The couple is expecting their first child next month.
In a recent NY Post Article, a former class mate who is female Jewish graduate student said that Khalil expressed virulent hatred for Israel.
“It was just so clear that the thing driving him most in life is destroying Israel and everyone within it and anyone who supports it, and probably all Jewsam,” she told the Post. “That to me was scary, that something could consume you like that.”
The student was in a class with Khalil and was so concerned about his comments on the WhatsApp group that she anonymously filed two Title VI complaints with Columbia administrators about his antisemitic rants within the group chat.
After Oct. 7, Khalil became a driving force behind many of the anti-Israel protests, organizing takeovers and building encampments that plagued Columbia for more than a year.
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