US authorities have arrested a Palestinian student who played a leading role in last year’s pro-Gaza protests on the campus of Columbia University in New York.
US immigration officials forced their way into Mahmoud Khalil‘s flat on Sunday and detained him, according to media reports.
He was later taken to a detention centre in the US state of Louisiana, the reports said.
US President Donald Trump labelled Khalil “a radical foreign pro-Hamas student” in a post on his online platform Truth Social on Monday.
Trump said he would deport him from the United States along with others involved in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic and anti-American activity.”
According to his lawyer, however, Khalil has an unlimited US residence permit, a so-called green card. Revoking such status is usually a lengthy process.
Khalil intends to take legal action against his deportation, the lawyer added.
The New York Times reported that the Palestinian is married to a woman who is a US citizen and is eight months pregnant.
A court had initially blocked Khalil’s deportation to allow time for a ruling, according to media reports.
Protests against Israel’s inhuman actions amid the Gaza war have taken place at New York’s elite Columbia University and many other universities in the US. Camps were set up and buildings were occupied.
Khalil played a prominent role as a speaker at the demonstrations in New York.
Columbia is being targeted by the Trump administration, which believes the demonstrators there sympathize with Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip and that Jewish students on campus are not sufficiently protected.
The university recently had $400 million in funding cancelled.