Previous classmates Mahmoud Khalila graduate student in Palestinian Colombia, was recently arrested by ICE and spoke out after being arrested, saying she felt “safe with him” and claiming that he “had hated the United States and everything it represents.”
this New York Post According to reports, one of Khalil’s classmates, a female Jewish graduate student, was afraid to defend his beliefs because they were worried about Khalil’s revenge. She called Khalil an “insidious” presence on campus and said she even dropped a class because of him, telling the post: “I just don’t want to be his target.”
Khalil, 30, is a Syrian-born Palestinian graduate student Columbia University. He was one of the most prominent leaders in the Israel-Gaza war protests last year, many of which undermined the class and required a large number of police responses.
He was arrested by ICE on March 8 and is currently retained in a Louisiana detention center.
Leading Housing Republican members said, “The ice started because the ice started”
Mahmoud Khalil, left, protester, right (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey | Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Forum News Service via Getty Images
Democrats and media accusations Trump administration In an attempt to combat freedom of speech, the government said Khalil was a terrifying sympathizer and posed a threat to national security.
After being arrested, Secretary of State Marco Rubio On X, the government “will revoke visas and/or green cards from U.S. Hamas supporters in order to deport them.”
Harrier’s former classmate said that despite his normal appearance, his remarks made her and other Jewish students feel extremely threatening. She filed two sixth championship complaints with the Colombian government, but the university never took any action against him.
“If he was a scared person, he threatened to slap in the face, but he wasn’t,” she said. “He was very tolerant and cautious about his words, which almost made him look even more sinister because it was so intentional – he never exaggerated, he knew very well. He never joked.”
A protester held the Palestinian flag during a parade on the Columbia University campus in New York City on April 29, 2024. (Reuters/David Di Delgado)
Since his arrest, the student said she “feels safer on campus.”
“I do think this country might be safer without him here, like I don’t know how he got a green card,” she said.
“He seems to like everything that America and it represents,” she added. “I think he’s doing a lot of things here that he’s doing injuring and violence, and I can see him doing more.”
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Despite the criticism from the media, President Donald Trump Saying that Khalil’s arrest was “the first of many in the future”.
“After the execution order I signed earlier, Ice proudly arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a student of radical foreign relatives students on Columbia University’s campus,” Trump wrote. “We know that there are increasing numbers of students at Columbia and other universities across the country who engage in pro-terrorism, anti-Semitism, anti-American activities that the Trump administration will not tolerate.”
Hamas says US-Israel hostages will be released only when a ceasefire is implemented
People gathered in Foley Square to protest the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil in Manhattan on March 10, 2025. (Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Forum News Service via Getty Images)
“We will find that the arrest and expulsion of these terrorist sympathizers – never return,” he added. “If you support terrorism, including the massacre of innocent men, women and children, your presence runs contrary to our national and foreign policy interests and is unpopular here.”
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ICE arrested a second Columbian student activist on Friday Leqaa KordiaFrom the West Bank, they also participated in the Israeli Gaza protests. Cordia was illegally present in the country despite her student visa being cancelled in 2022.
Columbia University did not respond to Fox News numbers’ requests for comment at the time of publication.
The Justice Department is also investigating whether universities deliberately hide illegal students in the country. Colombia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong issued a statement Saturday saying the university “will maintain its values” but did not respond directly to the Justice Department’s investigation.
