Trump threatens to arrest students who support Palestine in American universities

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the arrest of Palestinian graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York, would be followed by other arrests.

“Pursuant to previously signed executive orders, ICE has arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a radicalized foreign student with ties to Hamas, on the Columbia University campus. This is the first of many arrests to come,” he added in a post on Truth Social.

"We know that there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activities, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate that," Trump vowed.

"Many of them are not students, but motivated troublemakers. We will search for these terrorist sympathizers, arrest them, and deport them from our country, and they will never return," he said.

"If you support terrorism, including the killing of innocent men, women and children, your presence is contrary to our national and international interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect all American colleges and universities to comply," he added.

The White House posted a photo of Khalil on its social media platform X on Monday, accompanied by the caption “Shalom Mahmoud,” quoting Trump’s threats regarding students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

In another tweet, the White House account attached a photo of Khalil with the caption “Arrested,” continuing to spread lies about the association of protesters against the Israeli war on Gaza with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

Khalil is one of the most prominent leaders of the protest movement that has been taking place at the university since last year against the Israeli war in Gaza, and he was arrested by the US Federal Immigration Police over the weekend.

Khalil had recently graduated from Columbia University and was a permanent resident of the United States (green card) when he was arrested, according to the university's Student Workers Union.

Even before Khalil's arrest, students say federal immigration agents had been spotted in student housing around the Columbia campus since Thursday, the day before the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in grants and contracts to a group of universities including Columbia.

According to the Columbia University Student Union, federal agents are trying to arrest at least one other foreign student in addition to Khalil.

The student, whom the union declined to identify, received an email on Thursday from the U.S. consulate in his home country informing him that his visa had been revoked, a decision that had not been previously reported. The union said the consulate did not give a reason for the revocation.

The American Civil Liberties Union condemned Khalil's arrest, describing it as "unprecedented, unlawful, and un-American."

“The government’s actions are clearly intended to intimidate speech… on one side of the public debate,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, in a statement.

The arrest prompted international condemnation, as the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that "it is necessary to highlight the importance of preserving the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly everywhere."

Source: Agencies