non-paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/opinion/mahmoud-khalil-free-speech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3E4.C1QK.O1Agc1hVDtjW&smid=url-share https://www

non-paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/opinion/mahmoud-khalil-free-speech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3E4.C1QK.O1Agc1hVDtjW&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/opinion/mahmoud-khalil-fr... > On Saturday, immigration agents showed at the apartment building of Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, and told him his student visa had been revoked and that he was being detained. Khalil is married to an American, and his lawyer, speaking to the agents by phone, informed them that he had a green card, but they said that had been revoked as well. He was taken away, and as of this writing appears to be in a detention facility in Louisiana. > In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump made it clear that Khalil was snatched because of his activism. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” wrote Trump. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”... > ...Khalil, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, hasn’t been charged with any crime. A dossier on him compiled by Canary Mission, a right-wing group that tracks anti-Zionist campus activists, includes no examples of threatening or violent speech, just demands for divestment from Israel. Last year Khalil was suspended from his graduate program for his role in the campus demonstrations, but the suspension was reversed soon after, apparently for lack of evidence, and he completed his degree. The Department of Homeland Security claimed he “led activities aligned to Hamas,” but that’s an impossibly vague, legally meaningless charge.