The many misrepresentations of Mahmoud Khalil

Early this week, as Columbia students scrambled to respond to the United States government’s arrest of recent graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a series of logistical hurdles emerged. What would the protesters do if approached by police? What did the fine print of Columbia’s recently-updated public events policy say? What should the group tell the media? 

As one student told me, there was a grim humor amid the discussion. “Shit,” they thought each time an obstacle came up, “Mahmoud would’ve known what to do.”

Khalil, according to the many student protesters I spoke with, was an anchor for the movement, though he reportedly did not participate directly in the Columbia encampment. Rather, he was a spokesperson and a mediator: as the group navigated a tumultuous spring of protest, Khalil always seemed to know how to move forward calmly under pressure. Politicians and outsiders have painted a different—and more sinister—picture of Khalil, who is Palestinian, labeling him as “aligned” with terrorists and in need of deportation.

On the evening of March 8th, plainclothes Department of Homeland Security officers—including one who was given a shoutout at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, as Drop Site News reported—stopped Khalil outside his home, detained him in front of his eight-months-pregnant wife, and, without presenting a warrant, took him away. In legal filings, Khalil’s lawyers said his wife was not told where her husband would be taken.

NEW: The docket for the Mahmoud Khalil case has been updated with today’s orders: – Restrictions on filings have been lifted– Govt will file its motion to transfer or dismiss for improper venue by midnight– Parties will file opposition by noon 3/14, replies by 5pm 3/17 https://t.co/c1o8LimAJ9 pic.twitter.com/M0urvPjab9

— Tyler McBrien (@TylerMcBrien) March 12, 2025

Federal agents told him they were there to revoke his student visa, according to his lawyers. When Khalil told the officers he is a legal permanent resident with a green card, they told him they would revoke that instead. 

“My husband was kidnapped from our home, and it’s shameful that the US government continues to hold him because he stood for the rights and lives of his people,” Khalil’s wife said in a statement delivered Wednesday. “His disappearance has devastated our lives—every day without him is filled with uncertainty, not just for me but for our entire family and community.”

At noon on Tuesday, March 11th, Columbia students and faculty staged a sit-in on the Low Library steps, demanding that ICE leave Columbia’s campus and return their friend. Within ten minutes, public safety officers had the area fenced off, as helicopters hovered overhead. It was a different campus from one year ago: nearly every green space was fenced-in, and almost no outsiders were allowed through Columbia’s gates. 

At the protest, a student named Carly—a classmate of Khalil’s from Columbia’s School of International and Professional Studies—said the detained graduate’s friends know him as someone who wants to help others, even when that means making himself a target.

“He has really gone above and beyond to protect his peers and protect those around him in a way that has even directly harmed him,” Carly said. During last spring’s protests, “when Columbia University admin threatened student safety, Mahmoud served as a mitigator to protect students, which also made him more directly targeted.”

Joseph Howley, a classics professor at Columbia, has known Khalil for a year. The professor had grown to rely on Khalil, he said. “Throughout the year, I came to realize that Mahmoud is someone you can always count on to get a straight answer and to talk you through a difficult situation,” Howley said. “Last year, anytime I had a question about what someone was doing or concerns about something in the protest movement and wanted to get some facts checked, I could always call Mahmoud and get a straight answer.” 

Carly—who wore a Magen David necklace and a large heart-shaped necklace with the word “Palestine”—said that as a Jewish Columbia student, she felt her supposed “safety” was being used as a pretext for arresting her friend.

The evening that Mahmoud was taken from his university-owned apartment, Carly said, she was messaging back and forth with him about how to keep other students safe from deportation threats. “The night of his detainment, there was a call to action among students, about how we can help with this threat from ICE,” she remembered. “Mahmoud was one of the first people to respond and ask, ‘How can I help?’” Hours later, he was arrested.

These descriptions of Khalil stand in stark contrast to how politicians have spoken of him. President Donald Trump took credit for the arrest. His administration has promised “many more to come.” Border czar Tom Homan called Khalil a “national security threat,” and asserted that he violated free speech “limits.” Homan said on Fox News that they were “absolutely” allowed to deport Khalil.

Even Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), in condemning Khalil’s arrest, still made time to equivocate by prefacing his statement by declaring “I abhor many of the opinions and policies that Mahmoud Khalil holds and supports” (though the Senator did not say what those opinions might be). House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), similarly, asserted that Khalil “created an unacceptable hostile academic environment for Jewish students and others” before calling on DHS to stop his deportation.

For Schumer and Jeffries, Khalil’s first-amendment rights are seemingly limited by the alleged content of his speech. But, they say, deportation is out of line. For Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who said “this is not about free speech”—Khalil is an example of the coming crackdown and reminiscent of the War on Terror limits of political thought. “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” an unnamed White House official told Bari Weiss’ Free Press. but that Khalil “is a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.”

Reporting in The Forward suggests that the Trump administration may have obtained his name via a targeted campaign on social media by pro-Israel doxxing groups like Betar and Canary Mission—and that Columbia, as the owner of the property Khalil lives on, did not stop DHS agents from entering. (Columbia has released a statement saying that they did not “request” the presence of ICE agents on campus, and that agents “must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public university buildings.”)

On Wednesday morning, Khalil’s attorney Diala Shamas said outside a Manhattan courthouse that the legal team was unable even to get a call with their client. “A phone call with his lawyers is the bare minimum, and it’s what we need to do…to simply be able to file the papers we need to file to get him back,” Shamas said.

New York federal judge Jesse Furman said he would order the government to allow Khalil’s lawyers to speak with him once on Wednesday, and once on Thursday. So far, despite his lawyers’ hopes, Khalil remains in Louisiana, where he was sent to a GEO Group facility that has reports of previous human rights abuses.

“Fundamentally everything that’s happening to Mahmoud is because of his advocacy for Palestinian rights,” Shamas said. Documents obtained by the Washington Post show that the specific provision the US government is trying to invoke against Khalil requires Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s personal assertion that ““the Secretary of State 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 government is invoking this very rarely used provision of the immigration and nationality act that they claim allows them to deport people simply because of their political opinions,” Shamas said. 

Khalil’s Columbia classmates disbanded their sit-in after five hours. That same evening, another large protest marched through Manhattan in support of Khalil. And the following morning, he appeared in court. He had still not been accused of any crime.

At a briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said this was just the beginning. Khalil, she said, was present while “pro-Hamas propaganda fliers” were distributed (which is not a crime) and suggested that the Department of Homeland Security is in possession of a list of further Columbia students to deport.

Columbia University, when asked for comment on his case, still has not responded. 

Najib Aminy contributed reporting.