As protests against the Gaza conflict sparked Lancer and his division at Columbia University last year, one student highlighted his role as negotiators representing activists in consultations with school staff who were desperate to achieve peace on campus.
Mahmoud Khalil, 30, emerged as the public face of students against the war, leading the demonstrations and allowing interviews. He conveyed the message that his part was seen as measured and responsible, but that it was branded as anti-Semitic by some, including the Trump administration.
Khalil recently appeared in January, when Four masked protesters took part in a class on Israeli history taught by Israeli professors in Colombia, and accused them of “normalizing genocide.” The video of Halil, unmasked in the related sit-ins, was quickly distributed on social media among critics of the Colombian protests, with some people being asked to deport him.
Over the weekend, Halil was once again at the heart of the news. He was arrested by federal immigration authorities for a dramatic escalation of President Trump's crackdown on what he called anti-Semitic campus activity. Halil, a permanent resident of the United States, lived in a student housing complex in Columbia when he was detained and later transferred to the Central Louisiana Ice Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana.
Police said about 3,000 protesters flooded the streets of Lower Manhattan late Monday afternoon.
“I support immigrant rights and freedoms, and the Palestinian fight for liberation,” said Alan Yaskin, who attended the demonstrations and said he was identifying him as Jewish. “Mahmoud Khalil was exercising the rights that everyone was entitled to.”
Mr. Halil's friend said he was stunned upon hearing his arrest and described him as kind, expressive and kind. He is a man who loves to dance, read Arab poetry and play Arab music, said Mariam Alwan, a parent and student on campus. He held dinner at home and served Middle Eastern cuisine.
“One of my friends graduated last year so I couldn't get a graduation robe,” Alwan said. “He just gave her him.”
On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan ordered the US government not to remove Khalil from the country, but the judge considered the claims filed by Halil's lawyers who challenge the legality of his detention.
Federal immigration officials did not immediately respond to questions about Halil's move, including why he was more than 1,000 miles away from his New York City home, where he was arrested.
President Trump welcomed the arrests in a true social post on Monday, pledging that more students are on the verge of arrests.
“Ice proudly arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a fundamental foreign pro-Hamas student on Columbia University's campus,” the president wrote. “This is the first arrest of many people going forward.”
Mr. Halil's arrest sparked anger from university students and faculty. Joseph Howley, a Columbia professor of classics, described him as a brave yet calm attitude. He is the “perfect diplomat” who worked to find a middle ground between protesters and school administrators.
Howley, who had known Halil for about a year, said he was unhappy with Halil's portrayal as a dangerous person after meeting him after he began to speak out in the protests on campus.
“This is someone who seeks solutions mediated through speech and dialogue,” he said. “This isn't someone who engages in violence or makes people ril to do anything dangerous, so it's really bothering me to see such misrepresentation of him.”
However, the Colombian Jewish Alumni Association said in the X thread that he called him the “chassistance of chaos” in Colombia and was involved in the acquisition of two buildings, Colombia and Bernard.
According to legal filings by his lawyer, Mr. Halil was born and raised in Syria as his grandparents were forcibly taken away from the home of Tiberia's ancestors, now part of Israel. He is Palestinian and graduated from Colombia in December and earned a master's degree from the International Public Service School. He is married to an American citizen who is hoping for his first child next month, his lawyer said.
His wife was not appointed in a statement released Monday night by his lawyer, Amy Greer. I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is by my side and holds my hand in the delivery room as we welcome the first child into this world. ”
According to a court application from his lawyer, Halil and his wife returned to their apartment on the Manhattan campus in Columbia around 8:30pm on Saturday, when an immigration officer in plain clothes approached them. All of them entered the lobby of a Columbia-owned apartment.
The agent who detained Khalil told him that his student visa had been revoked despite him not having such a visa, according to legal filings. Mr. Halil's wife said they arrested him and his green card had also been revoked when he showed officers' documents indicating he was a legal permanent resident, not a student visa holder. Officers threatened to arrest Mr. Halil's wife if she didn't go to her apartment and left her husband behind, court documents said. They then handcuffed him and took him outside to where the car was waiting.
Mr. Halil married his wife on November 16, 2023 and became a legal permanent resident in 2024.
As news of Khalil's detention spread, the petition seeking his release had garnered more than 1.7 million signatures by Monday evening. A group of Colombian faculty members gathered with leaders and immigration rights advocates Monday evening to accus the “unprecedented, unconstitutional arrests of permanent residents and Colombian graduate students in retaliation for political activity.”
Sophie Elman Golan, director of Jewish communications for racial and economic justice and a Bernard University alumnus, described Halil's arrest as “so false and scary.”
“To target political speeches like this, to target permanent residents like this is extraordinary,” Erman Golan said.
Hamed Areaziz and Louis Feret Sadorni Contribution reports and Kirsten Neus Contributed research.
