The Trump administration is coming for student protesters

The Trump management is embarking connected a monolithic assemblage reside crackdown, starting pinch Columbia University, wherever it’s demanding outer power of full departments and reward for student activists. Its first trial case, Mahmoud Khalil, a postgraduate student pinch a greenish card, offers a hint of what’s to come: a authorities of intentional chaos that undermines free reside and owed process rights. Thus far, Columbia appears to beryllium complying pinch the administration’s demands, moreover arsenic its students cogwheel up to conflict back.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents raided Columbia University’s campus connected Thursday night, looking for students successful 2 residential buildings, according to a university-wide email sent by Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong. At a property convention connected Friday, lawman lawyer wide Todd Blanche said the Justice Department is investigating whether student protesters astatine Columbia violated national coercion laws and that it would prosecute “any personification engaging successful worldly support of terrorism.” Hours earlier the raids, Columbia received a associated missive from 3 authorities agencies demanding that it punish student protesters; empower “internal rule enforcement”; and put its Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies section nether an “academic receivership” for astatine slightest 5 years, among different demands — aliases other consequence losing its “financial narration pinch the United States government.”

That aforesaid day, the assemblage announced that it had suspended, expelled, and successful immoderate cases temporarily revoked the degrees of respective students “in relationship with” the business of a assemblage building past spring. Grant Miner, the president of the Student Workers of Columbia union, was expelled and fired from his field position, the national said connected Thursday. Miner’s expulsion was announced the time earlier the national was expected to commencement bargaining pinch assemblage administration. Columbia did not publically disclose really galore different students were punished.

In an emailed connection to The Verge, Columbia spokesperson Samantha Slater said the assemblage is “reviewing the missive from the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and General Services Administration” and is “committed astatine each times to advancing our mission, supporting our students, and addressing each forms of favoritism and hatred connected our campus.” Slater declined to remark connected Khalil’s arrest, arsenic good arsenic the apprehension and visa revocations of different Columbia students. Slater besides declined to disclose really galore students were disciplined successful narration to the 2024 protests.

The students are pushing back. Thursday afternoon, 8 Columbia and Barnard students asked a national judge to extremity the assemblage from giving the authorities entree to pro-Palestine protesters’ disciplinary records, alleging that doing truthful would expose students to “public threats, dislike speech, and beingness danger” successful retaliation for their advocacy. It’s not conscionable a hypothetical. Khalil, who is presently detained astatine an ICE installation successful Louisiana, was among the students who revenge the suit. On Friday, his ineligible squad announced that they were filing an emergency bail mobility successful the Southern District of New York. Khalil, who is Palestinian, faces deportation to Syria depending connected the result of his migration case. Court filings statement that speech from his imperishable US residency — besides known colloquially arsenic a greenish paper — he is efficaciously stateless: he grew up successful a Palestinian exile campy successful Syria, from which his family was later displaced by the civilian warfare there. His relatives are now scattered passim Europe and West Asia, his attorneys said. (While imperishable residents are taxable to deportation nether definite circumstances — usually aft being charged pinch a crime — Khalil’s lawsuit is particularly different successful that it relies connected an obscure McCarthy-era statute that has seldom been utilized to deport anyone.)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents person since arrested a 2nd personification who participated successful pro-Palestine protests astatine Columbia, DHS announced connected Friday. Leqaa Kordia, who is from the West Bank of Palestine, had her student visa terminated successful January 2022 for “lack of attendance,” DHS claims. According to DHS, Kordia had antecedently been arrested successful April 2024 complete her engagement successful pro-Palestine protests astatine Columbia. In an email to The Verge, a spokesperson pinch the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information said it had nary apprehension study for Kordia. DHS did not respond to The Verge’s petition for comment.

DHS besides claimed that Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia student who was successful the state connected an F-1 student visa, “self-deported” utilizing Customs and Border Protection’s caller “CBP Home” app. Immigration reporter Tanvi Misra confirmed that the student did time off the state voluntarily but was incapable to verify whether the student utilized the app to do so.

Thursday’s raids — successful which nary 1 was arrested, according to the interim assemblage president’s email — occurred conscionable 5 days aft plainclothes ICE agents arrested Khalil successful his university-owned flat building. The authorities alleges that Khalil, a imperishable resident, is simply a threat to the US’s “foreign argumentation interests.” Since being arrested by ICE, Khalil has mostly been incapable to pass pinch his ineligible team, his attorneys said during a Wednesday proceeding earlier a New York national judge.

On Wednesday, Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York ordered the authorities to assistance Khalil 2 privileged conversations pinch his ineligible team, but didn’t rumor a decision connected the habeas corpus petition requesting Khalil’s merchandise from ICE detention, which his lawyer Amy Greer revenge the nighttime of his arrest. That petition has turned into a ineligible conflict of its ain arsenic authorities attorneys conflict to support Khalil successful ICE custody.

“Habeas corpus” is Latin for “you person the body,” and, successful astir cases, the building is only somewhat related to what a habeas petition — a petition to a national judge that a personification beryllium released from authorities custody — is for. In the lawsuit of Mahmoud Khalil, “you person the body” is all-too-apt of a phrase: the mobility of wherever the authorities put him, physically, astatine circumstantial times is looming complete his deportation proceedings.

During the Wednesday hearing, DOJ lawyers claimed Furman didn’t person jurisdiction complete the lawsuit — and truthful couldn’t bid the merchandise — because Khalil wasn’t successful New York erstwhile the petition was filed.

An amended habeas petition revenge successful national tribunal Thursday nighttime provides further specifications astir Khalil’s apprehension — and alleges that the Southern District does person jurisdiction complete his case. Khalil’s attorneys title the government’s declare that he wasn’t successful New York erstwhile the first petition was filed, and besides statement that he is being detained “at the discretion of” William P. Joyce, the acting head of ICE’s New York section office, who is named arsenic a responsive successful the complaint.

The ICE agents who arrested Khalil told his woman that they were taking him to 26 Federal Plaza, a DHS building successful Manhattan, the title claims. Khalil’s woman captured portion of the arrest, arsenic good arsenic her interactions pinch the ICE agents, successful a video that was released by the ACLU connected Friday. Khalil’s ineligible squad told reporters that the agents initially did not place themselves and refused to opportunity what agency they were with.

That night, Greer, Khalil’s attorney, utilized ICE’s detainee locator to find his whereabouts. Around 1:35 am, the locator said he was successful custody successful New York. When Greer checked the locator again earlier filing the habeas petition astir 4:40 am, the locator still said Khalil was successful custody successful New York. By the adjacent morning, however, the locator said he was astatine a detention halfway successful Elizabeth, New Jersey.

That nighttime astatine 26 Federal Plaza, ICE agents gave Khalil paperwork, including a custody determination and a Notice to Appear (NTA) successful migration court, and told him to motion it, the title claims. The NTA — ICE’s balanced of a charging archive — read:

The transcript is dated March 9, 2025, timestamped astatine 12:40 a.m., and signed by Supervisory Special Agent Timothy Moran astatine 26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY.

The agents denied Khalil’s petition to speak to his attorney, the title claims. Khalil refused to motion the papers, and later that night, was transferred — successful handcuffs and shackles — to the Elizabeth Detention Center successful New Jersey. Agents told him he’d beryllium returning to 26 Federal Plaza the adjacent time but couldn’t slumber there. However, alternatively of returning Khalil to the New York building, agents took him to JFK airport, from which he was flown to Dallas, Texas earlier being put connected different formation to Alexandria, Louisiana. After arriving successful Alexandria, Khalil was driven to Jena, Louisiana, wherever he remains. He was handcuffed and shackled for the entirety of the trip, the title alleges.

Khalil’s attorneys declare that his ongoing detention is harmful to some the result of his lawsuit and his family’s well-being; his woman is 8 months pregnant and cannot recreation to Louisiana to sojourn him. Khalil’s attorneys are not only demanding his merchandise from ICE detention but alleging that his migration apprehension violates his First Amendment correct to free reside and the owed process clause of the Fifth Amendment, is arbitrary and capricious arsenic defined by the Administrative Procedure Act, and violates the Accardi doctrine requiring authorities agencies to travel their ain regulations and soul guidelines. As the title notes, unless personification successful deportation proceedings poses a threat to the community, the intent of ICE detention is to guarantee that they be their migration hearings. The government, Khalil’s lawyers argue, person made “no reliable argument” that he can’t beryllium released to his family.

“His detention is besides preventing him from adequately litigating his removal proceedings, which the authorities has chosen to warrant only successful the press,” the title claims.

The authorities has not only justified Khalil’s apprehension successful the press; officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump person celebrated it, promising that others will follow. Conflating pro-Palestinian activism pinch antisemitism, the Trump management has sought to usage each assets astatine its disposal to spell aft student demonstrators — and the universities that it claims neglect to adequately punish them. The management pulled $400 cardinal successful backing from Columbia days earlier Khalil’s arrest, and a multi-agency task unit investigating antisemitism connected assemblage campuses has said it will sojourn different universities crossed the country.

On February 13, the House Committee connected Education and the Workforce demanded that Columbia and Barnard nutrient each student disciplinary records related to eleven incidents, including last year’s Hamilton Hall occupation, a objection protesting the university’s financial ties to Israel. The students who sued Columbia connected Thursday, including Khalil, are asking a national judge to prohibit the assemblage from handing complete those records, which they pass could beryllium utilized to dox and harass students.

Khalil’s apprehension illustrates the precocious stakes of these harassment campaigns. Just 1 time earlier his arrest, Khalil wrote to Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, asking the assemblage to protect him from what he described arsenic a “vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign” led by a Columbia professor and a chap student. After Khalil’s arrest, the Forward reported that activistic Ross Glick had personally mentioned Khalil to authorities officials, including aides for Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Fetterman (D-PA). Glick is the former executive head of Betar, a far-right Zionist statement that claims it has compiled a database of overseas students who person criticized Israel, and shared those students’ names pinch the Trump management successful the hopes that it will deport them.

In their title against Columbia, Khalil and different students allege that the Trump administration’s repression of protesters is “akin to the threat that McCarthyism and the wide overreach of the domiciled of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (“HUAC”) posed 50 years ago.”

In fact, Khalil’s deportation lawsuit rests connected a statute successful the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter Act that lets the lawyer wide render personification “deportable” if their beingness successful the state would “compromise a compelling United States overseas argumentation interest.”

“He’s put himself successful the mediate of the process of fundamentally pro-Palestinian activity,” Edgar said earlier falsely claiming that the caput of authorities tin revoke Khalil’s correct to beryllium successful the country. Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act — the alleged Foreign Policy Bar — does opportunity the caput of authorities tin state immoderate noncitizen deportable if they frighten the US’s overseas argumentation interests. But the determination to revoke a imperishable resident’s greenish paper yet lies pinch an migration judge.

Edgar refused to reply whether immoderate disapproval of the US authorities is considered a deportable offense.

Khalil’s attorneys declare that the Foreign Policy Bar is being misapplied. In 1987, they note, Congress passed the Moynihan Amendment, which lifted the McCarran-Walter Act’s provisions barring foreigners because of their governmental beliefs. Troy Edgar, the lawman DHS secretary, defended Khalil’s apprehension successful a Thursday interview pinch NPR, claiming again that the Secretary of State “can reappraisal his visa process astatine immoderate constituent and revoke it.” Khalil, for the record, has had a greenish paper since 2024.

While the Foreign Policy Bar remains successful place, his attorneys statement it has “been seldom invoked and reserved for cases involving high-ranking authorities officials aliases an alleged violent removable connected different grounds.”

Not, successful different words, a postgraduate student progressive successful field protests astatine a assemblage that touts for its students’ history of civilian disobedience.