What Mahmoud Khalil’s ICE arrest means for green card holders, free speech

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist, graduate student and lawful permanent resident of the United States, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement over his involvement in pro-Palestine campus protests at Columbia University. 

The case could mean a seismic shift in the way the US government handles free speech for green card holders.

On the night of March 8, plainclothes ICE agents detained 30-year-old Khalil at his university-owned apartment and reportedly threatened to detain his wife, who is eight months pregnant, alongside him. According to his lawyer, Amy Greer, the agents who took him into custody initially claimed to be acting on State Department orders to revoke his student visa, but when Greer told them over the phone that Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card and his wife provided documentation to corroborate it, the agents said they would revoke that documentation instead. 

As a graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil was at the helm of protests last year against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza. President Donald Trump has called these protests antisemitic and in late January issued an executive order expanding on one he issued during his first term. A fact sheet from the White House reads that the order would protect Jewish civil rights, prosecute antisemitic crimes and deport and revoke student visas of “Hamas sympathizers.”