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Mr. Khalil, who helped lead protests at Columbia University against high civilian casualties in Gaza, was arrested by immigration officers and sent to a detention center in Louisiana.
Protesters in Manhattan on Monday. Credit… Caitlin Ochs for The New York Times March 10, 2025
The Trump administration invoked an obscure statute over the weekend in moving to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the United States who recently graduated from Columbia University, where he helped lead campus protests against high civilian casualties in Gaza during Israel’s campaign against Hamas.
Mr. Khalil was arrested by immigration officers on Saturday and then sent to a detention center in Louisiana. On Monday, a federal judge in New York, Jesse M. Furman, ordered the federal government not to deport Mr. Khalil while he reviewed a petition challenging the legality of the detention.
Here’s what to know about the administration’s attempt to deport Mr. Khalil.
Who is the Columbia graduate? Mr. Khalil, 30, earned a master’s degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in December. He has Palestinian heritage and is married to an American citizen who is eight months pregnant.
At Columbia last spring, Mr. Khalil assumed a major role in student-led protests on campus against Israel’s war efforts in Gaza. He described his position as a negotiator and spokesman for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian group.
What’s the legal basis for his arrest? The Trump administration did not publicly lay out the legal authority for the arrest. But two people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio relied on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives him sweeping power to expel foreigners.
The provision says that any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”
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