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The student who played a prominent role during the Pravolestian protests at the Colombian University in New York last year, was detained by federal immigration officials, his lawyer says.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was a leading student talks for campus campus on western Manhattan.
His lawyer Amy Grir told the BBC that Mr Khalil was in his university house when agents on immigration and customs execution (ICE) took him into custody on Saturday.
Last year, Colombia was an epicenter of pro-Palestinian students across the country against the gas and support of Israel.
On Sunday, the BBC contacted the Internal Security Department, the State Department and the Colombian University.
Later, Secretary of State Mark Rubio posted the news about X about Mr Khalil’s arrest, commenting on: “We will withdraw the visas and/or green cards of Hamas in America to be deported.”
Ms Grir said that the ice agents reported to Mr. Khalil that his student visa had been canceled, but she said her client was a legal permanent resident with a green card and married an American citizen.
“Initially, we were told this morning that he had been transferred to the ice in Elizabeth, New Jersey,” said Ms Grir.
“However, when his wife, a US citizen who threatened his detention last night and threatened to arrest, and tried to visit him today, she was told that he was not detained.”
She said she did not know about Mr. Khalila’s current location, although the search for the locator of the detainee on the ICE website shows that a Syrian man was nicknamed Mahmud Khalil in New Jersey.
Ms Gryr said she heard that Mr. Khalila could be translated as far as Louisiana, without adding details.
The lawyer said that what happened to her client is “scary and unforgivable – and calculated – wrong.”
During the protests last summer, Mr. Khalil said he was negotiating with the university administrators on behalf of the student participants.
They set up a huge camp for a university’s tent in protest against the gas war.
Some students also seized control over the academic building for hours before the police entered campus to arrest them. Mr. Khalil was not in this group.
He later told the BBC that he was temporarily rejected by a university where he was a graduate student at the School of International and State Affairs.
Mr. Khalila’s detention stems from President Donald Trump’s executive order in January, warning that someone involved in “pro-Jihadist protests” and “all the sympathizers of Hamas on the college campus” will be deported.
Some Jewish Colombian students have stated that rhetoric at the demonstration sometimes went into anti -Semitism. Other Jewish students in the campus have joined the Protestine protests.
Last week, Trump’s administration announced that it canceled 400 million dollars (£ 310 million) in the Federal Glants of Colombia, accusing him that he did not fight anti -Semitism in the campus.
Charma President Katrina Armstrong said on Friday that “the abolition of these funds will immediately affect the research and other important functions of the university.”
Israeli military launched their campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross -border attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 48,000 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s hostilities, the Ministry of Health Hamas reports.
