ICE Arrest of Palestinian Grad Has Brought Fear to Columbia University Campus

Immigration brokers with the Division of Homeland Safety have detained a pacesetter of the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia College in New York. Mahmoud Khalil, who’s an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, is a inexperienced card holder and is married to a U.S. citizen; his spouse is eight months pregnant. Immigration officers informed Khalil’s lawyer his inexperienced card was being revoked. Khalil just lately graduated from Columbia College’s College of Worldwide and Public Affairs, and his whereabouts are unknown. “The [Trump] administration doesn’t appear to know precisely easy methods to justify this very haphazard, unilateral transfer,” says Prem Thakker, political correspondent and columnist for Zeteo.

The arrest comes as Donald Trump’s Federal Job Power to Fight Antisemitism introduced final week that it will cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the college, regardless of Columbia’s suppression of pro-Palestine activism. The Trump administration doesn’t “actually care about antisemitism or retaining Jews protected. All they care about is crushing dissent,” says Joseph Howley, affiliate professor of classics at Columbia College.

TRANSCRIPT

It is a rush transcript. Copy might not be in its last type.

AMY GOODMAN: That is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Warfare and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

An emergency rally is being held in New York right now, after ICE brokers detained a pacesetter of the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia College. Mahmoud Khalil is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent who’s a inexperienced card holder and a lawful everlasting resident of the USA. He’s married to a U.S. citizen. His spouse is eight months pregnant. Immigration officers informed Khalil’s lawyer his inexperienced card is being revoked. Khalil just lately graduated from Columbia College’s College of Worldwide and Public Affairs, SIPA. His whereabouts are unknown, although there are reviews he is likely to be in Louisiana.

In a press release, his lawyer, Amy Greer, stated, quote, “ICE’s arrest and detention of Mahmoud follows the U.S. authorities’s open repression of pupil activism and political speech, particularly concentrating on college students at Columbia College for criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza. The U.S. authorities has made clear that they may use immigration enforcement as a instrument to suppress that speech,” unquote.

Mahmoud Khalil was a key organizer of the Columbia encampment. That is Mahmoud talking on campus in April.

MAHMOUD KHALIL: This encampment is a minor inconvenience in comparison with the generational shaping occasions happening now in Gaza. All through the negotiations, the Shafik administration handled this motion as a matter of inner pupil self-discipline somewhat than a motion — or, somewhat than as one of many nice ethical and political questions of this technology. Columbia’s shortsighted political choice, making right now within the face of a genocide that has stolen the lives of over 34,000 human beings — girls, males, infants — in Gaza, that has destroyed lineages and heritage websites and universities, will probably be a stain on its legacy perpetually.

The scholars on this encampment are a present to Columbia. We provide to present the college again its rules. With all eyes on Columbia, the administration may have chosen to divest in a way that aligned with its previous. Columbia would somewhat trample its repute. As an alternative of being happy with its college students and college for elevating these extremely vital ethical questions, we now have been hit with little greater than threats and petty assaults. This isn’t a matter of merely violating college guidelines. It is a motion, an antiwar motion. We’ve sparked comparable Gaza solidarity encampments throughout the nation and even throughout the globe.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Mahmoud Khalil talking in April on the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia College. He was detained by ICE on Saturday.

On Sunday evening, Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared an article about Khalil and wrote on X, “We will probably be revoking the visas and/or inexperienced playing cards of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported,” unquote.

Khalil’s arrest got here because the Trump administration withdrew $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia College for failing to cease, quote, “antisemitic” harassment at its campus. The truth is, Columbia repeatedly focused Palestinian rights protesters, a lot of them Jewish, and referred to as in police to crack down on the peaceable pupil motion.

We’re joined now by two friends. Prem Thakker is political correspondent and columnist for Zeteo Information. He’s additionally a Columbia graduate. His most up-to-date piece, ”DHS Detains Palestinian Pupil from Columbia Encampment, Advocates Say.” We’re additionally joined by Joseph Howley, an affiliate professor of classics at Columbia College.

Professor Howley, let’s start with you. Are you able to clarify what occurred to Mahmoud Khalil on Saturday? The place was he? How was he taken? And the way is it attainable he was taken, provided that he has a inexperienced card?

JOSEPH HOWLEY: Nicely, there’s loads of questions in there we don’t know the solutions to. And the whole lot I find out about what occurred to Mahmoud comes from his lawyer and his household, as a result of we’ve nonetheless acquired no communication from the college.

Our understanding is that he and his spouse, who’s a U.S. citizen who’s eight months pregnant, have been returning residence right here within the neighborhood, and that plainclothes DHS brokers compelled their manner into their residence behind them, informed Mahmoud that his pupil visa had been revoked. When it was defined that he had a inexperienced card, they appeared confused, acquired on the cellphone with somebody, declared that the inexperienced card had additionally been revoked. Mahmoud’s lawyer acquired on the cellphone with them, demanded to see the warrant, and so they hung up, and so they took him off. And nobody was capable of finding him, you realize, I feel, for no less than 24 hours.

AMY GOODMAN: And might you speak about what folks’s response is true now, workers, college students round Columbia, how persons are organizing?

JOSEPH HOWLEY: Nicely, that is one thing that I feel could be very horrifying for lots of members of our neighborhood. I’ve colleagues and college students, you realize, messaging me since yesterday, asking about whether or not it’s protected to be on campus, asking about canceling lessons or taking lessons distant, as a result of they don’t understand how protected it’s to be on or round campus with ICE brokers prowling the neighborhood. And, you realize, we now have loads of members of our neighborhood who’re on pupil visas. We’ve loads of members of our neighborhood who’re everlasting residents. And so, I feel persons are questioning now, you realize: How is it protected to be right here on campus?

AMY GOODMAN: And might you discuss concerning the ambiance on campus?

JOSEPH HOWLEY: Nicely, campus has been underneath a safety lockdown since final April, since earlier than the primary Gaza solidarity encampment went up. So, strolling into campus this morning, issues have been very quiet. However they’re at all times very quiet now. They’ve been quiet for months and months. It looks like we’re underneath, you realize, a heavy safety routine.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling for? And might you speak about your criticism of the Columbia campus across the challenge of the pro-Palestinian protests that befell all final yr, how Columbia handled it? In the end, you’ve gotten the president, Minouche Shafik, leaving. The president had referred to as in police time and again.

JOSEPH HOWLEY: Certain. Look, for the final yr, various my colleagues and I’ve been making an attempt to make the purpose to college management, to our colleagues that these assaults on the Palestine solidarity motion as in some way inherently antisemitic or the concept that the presence of the solidarity motion poses a risk to all Jewish college students on campus are very harmful lies and bad-faith assaults on greater training that we actually needs to be participating with as threats somewhat than as honest complaints. So, we wrote a letter to former President Shafik final spring, that we revealed. We’ve written just a few different letters and statements since then.

And the purpose is de facto this: We all know that the political proper on this nation hates greater training and needs to destroy it or remake it in its personal picture. We’ve seen this within the public training system in locations like Florida and North Carolina. And it’s been very clear to anybody who’s watching since final spring that this challenge is getting used as a wedge. However now what we are able to see is that everybody who spent the yr pointing to anybody with a keffiyeh and yelling “Hamas!” pointing to anybody with a Palestinian flag and calling them a terrorist, everybody who spent the final yr happening the general public document and saying that Colombia has some type of uniform, cultural, widespread drawback with antisemitism, has been, you realize, loading the gun for the Trump administration to do what they at all times wished to do, which is cripple main establishments of studying on this nation.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Howley, for those who may discuss concerning the criticism that what’s happening on campus is antisemitic? The truth is, are you your self Jewish?

JOSEPH HOWLEY: I’m Jewish. And, you realize, I don’t actually like enjoying that card, however it’s grow to be crucial, for these of us who’re Jewish and don’t subscribe to the concept that the presence of this protest motion is antisemitic, to face up and say so.

However, look, we do have issues with, you realize, harassment and bias in direction of Jewish college students. We’ve issues with harassment and bias in direction of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian college students. Each time Israel goes on a brand new killing spree within the Occupied Palestinian Territories, antisemitism surges all over the world. Each time Hamas kills a whole bunch of individuals, we now have to take care of assaults on Muslims and Arabs. We’ve a widespread local weather drawback right here, as a result of that is a global campus. However, you realize, utilizing the ADL’s playbook, underneath the guise of defending Jewish college students, to suppress the protest motion has not been making anybody safer.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you able to speak about what has occurred now and for those who imagine different college students have been taken by ICE?

JOSEPH HOWLEY: You understand, we don’t have loads of details about this. My understanding is that on Friday, not lengthy after the federal authorities introduced the funding freeze, that ICE brokers tried to achieve entry to a different pupil residence. We don’t know but — or, I don’t know but if anybody else has been detained at this level, however, you realize, I’ve been listening to from college students within the final 24 hours that there are rumors or reviews of extra ICE exercise within the neighborhood right now. And we haven’t gotten something from the college administration about any of this, besides to say that Columbia follows the regulation.

AMY GOODMAN: And your response to this occurring on the identical time your college, Columbia, now the federal authorities is reducing off $400 million to the college? We simply had a phase on the assault on science. We’re speaking about throughout the board in Columbia — proper? — primary scientific analysis and past.

JOSEPH HOWLEY: Yeah, it’s going to be devastating. I imply, you realize, experiments are going to languish. Individuals are going to lose their jobs. Labs are going to get shut down. And, after all, it’s not simply concerning the struggle on science. It’s concerning the struggle on greater training.

However I feel the essential factor to concentrate to right here is that the duvet that the White Home is utilizing for that is this declare that Columbia has accomplished nothing to deal with this rampant local weather of antisemitism. I’ve already informed you I might dispute that characterization of the local weather on campus. Nevertheless it’s additionally clear that the college has accomplished an excellent deal about this. We’ve, you realize, a big new workplace of inclusion and fairness that’s been investigating each conceivable criticism of antisemitism, together with some that appear actually form of spurious or extreme.

I feel it’s outrageous that we needs to be taking lectures from a White Home on antisemitism, a White Home that’s most likely essentially the most antisemitic administration in American historical past. And I feel it’s preposterous that we as an establishment ought to attempt to discount or have interaction in good religion on the questions of antisemitism with, you realize, neo-Nazis and segregationists and nice substitute theorists. Like, I’m sufficiently old to recollect when Donald Trump’s supporters marched by means of the campus of College of Virginia chanting “Jews won’t substitute us.” I’m sufficiently old to recollect when the Republican Social gathering’s xenophobic propaganda about migrants satisfied somebody to shoot up the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. This isn’t a political motion that cares about retaining Jews or anybody else protected. It is a political motion that’s going to instrumentalize the worry and confusion of Jews to crush any form of dissent on this nation and to interrupt greater training.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you able to additionally speak about Columbia and Barnard expelling pupil protesters? The Nation journal just lately noted, based on the group Columbia College Apartheid Divest, the final expulsion for nonviolent political protest on the college was in 1936, when Robert Burke was expelled for rallying in opposition to Columbia’s ties to Nazism.

JOSEPH HOWLEY: Yeah. So, Barnard had just lately expelled two college students solely a few weeks after they allegedly participated in a classroom disruption right here on Columbia’s campus. And I feel it’s fairly clear to everybody that expulsion is an extremely drastic response to any form of infraction right here, particularly one which quantities to, you realize, a speech violation. My colleagues at Barnard inform me this expulsion was accomplished with out something like due course of, that the disciplinary course of and oversight by school over there may be actually in shambles.

I feel the vital factor to recollect right here is that these are establishments of studying. And after we expel college students summarily, we deprive ourselves of the chance to assist them study. So, I don’t know what anybody thinks expelling college students goes to attain, besides appeasing the right-wingers in D.C. However I feel we are able to see that there’s really no quantity of self-discipline or suppression that can appease them, as a result of they don’t actually care about antisemitism or retaining Jews protected. All they care about is crushing dissent.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you assume that is simply concerning the pro-Palestinian protests, I imply, as we transfer ahead, the message being despatched round protests on campus, Professor?

JOSEPH HOWLEY: Yeah, look, that is — I imply, you keep in mind what the backlash was like after the rebellion in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, proper? That is partially about whether or not we’re going to be allowed to have mass protest actions on this nation, whether or not we’re going to be allowed to have youth protest actions and pupil protest actions. And my colleagues and I’ve been saying for a yr now that one cause we have to get up higher to bad-faith lies concerning the Palestine solidarity motion is that that is about establishing a precedent for imposing speech codes on greater training and on American society typically. So, proper now it’s Palestine. Subsequent it’s going to be race or gender or trans rights or local weather.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re additionally joined, along with professor Joseph Howley, by Prem Thakker. He’s a political correspondent, columnist for Zeteo Information. You’ve been reporting extensively on the ICE raid on the house of this Columbia — former Columbia graduate pupil. Speak extra about what you realize, how they’re justifying the inexperienced card holder having his inexperienced card revoked, and now his eight-month-pregnant spouse shouldn’t be capable of finding out the place he’s, not to mention anybody else, together with his lawyer.

PREM THAKKER: Thanks, Amy. Thanks, Professor.

Sure, I feel one factor that’s actually price underscoring right here is simply how clumsy and haphazard this try by the administration has been to detain Mahmoud and to subsequently revoke his inexperienced card. Initially, because the professor stated, these brokers compelled themselves into this condo constructing, didn’t essentially, apparently, introduce themselves, demanded to see their identification, Mahmoud and his spouse. They usually first selected to inform him that they have been revoking his visa, that the State Division was revoking his visa. Upon them being informed that, in truth, Mahmoud had a inexperienced card, they have been on the cellphone. They stated, “Oh, really, you realize, the inexperienced card is revoked, as properly.”

And so, that was the premise for the resultant or subsequent manner wherein this has been seen, which is that the administration has been very lackluster of their rationalization for a way that is justifiable in any respect, first the shadowy arrest and detention in any respect, the truth that it’s unclear the place Mahmoud is true now. I can type of break some potential attainable information proper now, that it appears, based mostly on inner ICE detainee monitoring, that Mahmoud seems to be in Louisiana, as was feared. That’s not confirmed, however that’s what we’re seeing from the ICE detention tracker, which might generally be delayed or lag. However that’s one thing to bear in mind, that Mahmoud, who was detained in New York Metropolis, is, 36 hours later, already presumably in Louisiana. So, there may be that facet, the shadowy facet of this.

There’s additionally the facet that the administration doesn’t appear to know precisely easy methods to justify this very haphazard, unilateral transfer and is making an attempt to enchantment to easily President Trump’s government orders somewhat than issues just like the Structure or case regulation or authorized precedent. You may have Marco Rubio, as talked about, saying that they are going to be revoking not simply visa playing cards but additionally and/or inexperienced playing cards, which could be very a lot past his type of acknowledged authority, his jurisdiction. There may be some — there may be one particular person regulation that provides him huge authority to take action, however this is able to require Marco Rubio personally interfering on international coverage grounds to justify such a deportation. And so, I feel you’re going to see loads of not simply ethical pushback however authorized pushback in opposition to a few of that as simply so haphazard, so reckless and so unjustifiable in so many various methods.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you perceive concerning the college, Columbia College? How a lot are they — or are they — resisting this stress from the administration and even the arrest of Mahmoud?

PREM THAKKER: So, we had requested the college fairly early on about, you realize, type of their consciousness of ICE and DHS exercise on campus throughout and earlier than this detention, if that they had shared any pupil info or campus affiliate info with authorities. They usually selected to not reply these questions. They directed us to this broader assertion concerning steering, that that they had type of coincidentally issued to campus associates simply earlier than this occurred, about what associates ought to do in the event that they see ICE or DHS exercise on campus.

So, past the type of suspect or fascinating timing, what’s fascinating is that on this steering, it type of contrasts as to how the college type of operated in 2016 throughout Trump’s first time period, whereas the varsity was led by First Modification scholar and Columbia President Lee Bollinger, wherein they have been rather more agency in saying that they wouldn’t permit immigration authorities to be on campus and not using a warrant, that they wouldn’t share info with authorities until they have been ordered by a court docket or subpoenaed, whereas on this new steering, they type of have this extra open tolerance or concept to the concept that DHS or ICE brokers would possibly must entry buildings even and not using a warrant and that campus associates, quote, “mustn’t intervene” if that’s the case, underneath type of exigent circumstances, as the varsity calls them. And so, there’s already this type of shifting in rhetoric from Trump in his first time period to Trump in his second time period from Columbia’s perspective. And you’ll see that manifesting in what we’ve seen this weekend and, because the professor has stated, with reviews of extra ICE and DHS presence even as much as right now.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Prem Thakker, the firing of, the forcing out of the professor, regulation professor Katherine Franke — we simply have 30 seconds — this additionally coming inside this era? She was a regulation professor for nearly 1 / 4 of a century at Columbia.

PREM THAKKER: Sure, sure, completely. And I imagine the firing of professor Katherine Franke, you may see extra about that in our Zeteo town hall right now together with her, really. She is amongst an array of type of victims, folks caught up within the crossfire, being focused, as Professor Howley stated, for this right-wing assault on tutorial freedom, on establishments, on free speech, on the power for professors to advocate for his or her college students, to specific their very own free speech rights, to talk out in opposition to struggle, to talk out on behalf of Palestinians. And that is solely a type of broader type of warning signal of what’s to return if there may be not an organized, coherent opposition to this.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to depart it there. Prem Thakker, I need to thanks a lot for being with us, political correspondent and columnist for Zeteo. We’ll hyperlink to your articles. And, Professor Howley, thanks a lot.