Trump warns that the arrest of the Palestinian activist in Colombia will be “first”

New York (AP) – President Donald Trump warned Monday that arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests At Colombia University it will be the first “of many who will come”, while its administration collapses in campus demonstrations against Israel and the Gaza War.

Mahmoud Khalil, a US legal resident who was a student in Colombia to December, was detained on Saturday by federal immigration agents In New York and went to an immigration prison in Louisiana.

Internal security officials said that Khalil’s arrest was the result of Trump’s executive orders that prohibit anti -Semitism.

“We know that there are several students in Colombia and other universities from all over the country who have engaged in a pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity,” Trump wrote in a socialization position. “We will find, hold and deport these terrorist supporters from our country – let us never return.”

Khalil’s detention has attracted indignation by the groups of civil rights and lawyers of free expression, who accused the administration of using his powers of immigration to slip the criticisms on Israel.

His lawyers filed a process that challenges his detention. A federal judge in New York ordered Khalil to be deported while the court took into account his case. A hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.

Typically, the expulsion of a person who has a permanent residence in the US requires a high bar, such as that person convicted for certain types of crimes, but Khalil has not been accused of offenses regarding his activities during campus disorders last year.

It is the first person known to be detained for deportation under Trump’s promised repression on student protests.

The Federal Immigration authorities also visited a second international student in Colombia on Friday night, and tried to take it, but were not allowed to enter the apartment, according to a union representing the student. The woman was not identified and it is not clear for what reasons the agency and customs execution agency had for the visit.

Trump claimed that the protesters lost the rights to stay in the country by supporting the Palestinian group that controls Gaza. The US appointed Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Khalil and other leaders of students of the University of Colombia rejected the claims of anti -Semitism, saying they are part of A wider anti-war movement This also includes Jewish students and groups. But the protest coalition sometimes has it too Expressed support For leaders Hamas and Hezbollah, another Islamist organization designated by the US as a terrorist group.

Republican administration warned Monday and about 60 colleagues that they could loses federal money If they fail to make the campuses safe for Jewish students.

The Education Department said that it will take measures to apply the application if schools, including Harvard, Colombia and Cornell, fail to comply with civil rights against anti-Semitism And make sure “uninterrupted access” to campus facilities and education opportunities.

Trump administration is already pulling $ 400 million from Colombia and threatened to reduce billions more.

Born in Syria from Palestinian parents, Khalil appeared as one of the most visible activists in the protests in Colombia.

He served as a mediator on behalf of the pro-Palestinian activists, as well as of the Muslim students, a role that put in direct contact with the university leaders and with the press has attracted the attention of pro-Israeli activists, who in recent weeks have asked the Trump administration to deport it.

“He took a public role, and is now aimed at talking to the media,” another student protester Maryam Alwan told the Associated Press.

More recently, Khalil, who also has an American citizen wife who is pregnant with eight months, has faced the investigation by a The new disciplinary body set up at Colombia University.

The Bureau of Institutional Equity sent him a letter last month, accusing him of potentially violating a new harassment policy, calling online a “genocide dean”.

Khalil told AP last week that he served as a spokesman for the protesters, but did not play a leading role in making the group’s decisions or that he has no connection with his socializing posts.

“They claim that I was the leader of the Cuad or the socializing person, who is very far from reality,” he said, using the acronym for the Apartheid Cesion of the University of Colombia.

Khalil received a master’s degree from the International and Public Business School in Colombia. He has previously graduated from the American Lebanese University of Beirut with a computer science degree and worked at the British Embassy in Syria in Beirut, according to his biography on the website of the Society for International Development.

Colombia University refused to comment on Khalil’s arrest at the weekend and also did not respond on Monday.

Meanwhile, several hundred protesters gathered opposite a Federal building in Manhattan containing an ice field office. Many signs held depicting Khalil’s face and hand -written messages demanding his release.

“By arresting Mahmoud, Trump believes he can strip us from our rights and undress our commitment to our people,” Ibtihal Malley, a student of the University of New York, told the crowd. “This is what we say: you are wrong.”

Back in Campus, Sophomore Colombia, Pearson Lund, was among those who found the potential stripping of Khalil’s green book.

“At what time does this process stop?” The student in physics said when he entered Campus through a security line guarded by the police in the city.

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Associated Press, Cedar Attanasio from New York and Collin Binkley, contributed to this report.

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