Donald Trump Identifies First Focus in Campus Protest Clampdown | Vanity Fair

Donald Trump’s threatened crackdown on university protests began in earnest Sunday night with the arrest of pro-Palestinian activist and former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil.

Khalil, reportedly a green card holder who was involved in last year’s student protests over the war in Gaza, was arrested at his university-owned apartment and taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, according to the Associated Press. Khalil’s lawyer Amy Greer told the AP that ICE agents at the scene also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, who is an American citizen and eight months pregnant. Khalil is now reportedly being held in a detention facility in Louisiana.

In a post on X Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared the AP’s story, writing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” Immigration experts, meanwhile, pushed back on the idea that revoking green cards is even within the State Department’s authority.

In a statement, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, called the move by the Trump administration a “targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on [Khalil’s] First Amendment rights.”

“It’s clear that the Trump administration is selectively punishing Mr. Khalil for expressing views that aren’t MAGA-approved—which is a frightening escalation of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, and an aggressive abuse of immigration law,” Lieberman wrote.

Khalil’s arrest comes after Trump threatened to imprison or deport students involved in “illegal protests” on campus and to withhold federal funding from any colleges and universities that permit such protests. The Trump administration took particular aim at Columbia University, cancelling $400 million in grants and contracts on Friday over allegations that the school had failed to protect Jewish students on campus. Another nine schools have been added to a federal watch list to be investigated by the Department of Justice.

Khalil had previously been among those being investigated by a new Columbia disciplinary committee focused on students who had been critical of Israel. In an interview with the AP last week, he said he was facing allegations from the committee over social media posts “that I had nothing to do with.” The State Department is also reportedly planning to use AI tools to scan student visa holders’ social media accounts for any sign of “pro-Hamas” views.

The Trump administration’s efforts to stifle anti-Israel sentiment on campus are just the president’s latest attempt to crush dissent. By wielding the federal government’s immigration authorities—and most notably, its formidable funding power—the president has spurred a mass chilling effect across the government and the private sector. Even as he claims to have ended government censorship, his administration is quite literally censoring entire lists of words from so much as being written on government websites. Among the too-hot-to-handle words government officials are being cautioned about, according to the New York Times? “Women” and “Native American.”

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