Trump warns that arrest of Palestinian activist at Columbia will be 'first of many'
New York, Mar 11 (AP): President Donald Trump warned Monday that the arrest and possible deportation of a Palestinian activist who helped lead protests at Columbia University will be the first “of many to come” as his administration cracks down on campus demonstrations against Israel and the war in Gaza.
Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful U.S. resident who was a graduate student at Columbia until December, was detained Saturday by federal immigration agents in New York and flown to an immigration jail in Louisiana.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
But a federal judge in New York City ordered Monday that Khalil not be deported while the court considered a legal challenge brought by his lawyers. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
Khalil's detention drew outrage from civil rights groups and free speech advocates, who accused the administration of using its immigration enforcement powers to squelch criticism of Israel.
He is the first person known to be detained for deportation under Trump's promised crackdown on student protests.
Federal immigration authorities also visited a second international student at Columbia on Friday evening and attempted to take her into custody but were not allowed to enter the apartment, according to a union representing the student.
Khalil, 30, had not been charged with any crime related to his activism, but Trump has argued that protesters forfeited their rights to remain in the country by protests he claimed support Hamas, the Palestinian group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The U.S. has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Khalil and other student leaders of Columbia University Apartheid Divest have rejected claims of antisemitism, saying they are part of a broader anti-war movement that also includes Jewish students and groups. But the protest coalition, at times, has also voiced support for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Islamist organization designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group.
The U.S. Education Department on Monday warned some 60 colleges, including Harvard and Cornell, that they could lose federal money if they fail to uphold civil rights laws against antisemitism and ensure “uninterrupted access” to campus facilities and education opportunities. The Trump administration is already pulling $400 million from Columbia.
A group of Columbia faculty members expressed concern Monday that Khalil's detention was intended to suppress free speech by students and staff who are not U.S. citizens.
“The attack on Mahmoud Khalil is intended to make them quake in their boots, and to make all of us quake in our boots," said Michael Thaddeus, a Columbia math professor. "Our message to Washington is that we are not silenced, we are not afraid, and we stand together, determined to defeat this ongoing assault on our fundamental rights.”
In their legal complaint, Khalil's attorneys accused the government of retaliating against him for his “constitutionally protected advocacy on behalf of Palestinian human rights.”
Typically, the government has to meet a higher bar to expel a person who has permanent residency in the U.S., like showing someone has been convicted of a serious crime.
Born in Syria to Palestinian parents, Khalil entered the U.S. to attend Columbia in 2022. He subsequently got married to an American citizen, who is now eight months pregnant.
Khalil emerged as one of the most visible activists in large protests at Columbia last year, serving as a mediator on behalf of pro-Palestinian activists and Muslim students. That role put him in direct touch with university leaders and the press — and drew attention from pro-Israel activists, who in recent weeks called on the Trump administration to deport him.
“He took a public facing role, and now he's being targeted for speaking to the media," another student protester, Maryam Alwan, told The Associated Press.
More recently, Khalil faced investigation by a new disciplinary body set up at Columbia University, which sent him a letter last month accusing him of potentially violating a new harassment policy by calling a school official a “genocidal dean” online.
Khalil told The Associated Press last week that he served as a spokesperson for protesters but did not play a leadership role.
“They are alleging that I was the leader of CUAD or the social media person, which is very far from reality,” he said, using the acronym for Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
Khalil received a master's degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs last semester. He previously graduated from the Lebanese American University in Beirut with a computer science degree and worked at the British Embassy in Beirut's Syria office, according to his biography on the Society for International Development's website.
A few hundred protesters rallied near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Manhattan on Monday to demand Khalil's release.
“By arresting Mahmoud, Trump thinks he can strip us of our rights and strip us of our commitment to our people,” Ibtihal Malley, a New York University student, told the crowd. “To that we say: You are wrong.”
Back on campus, Columbia sophomore Pearson Lund was among those who found the potential stripping of Khalil's green card concerning.
“At what point does this process stop?” the physics student said as he entered campus through a security line guarded by city police officers.
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Nothing changes, India will be paying tariffs; we will not be paying tariffs: Trump after SC ruling
New York/Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump said “nothing changes” in the trade deal with India in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict against his sweeping tariffs, as he responded to the ruling by announcing an additional 10 per cent global levies on items imported into the US.
In a major setback to Trump’s pivotal economic agenda of his second term, the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 verdict written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that the tariffs imposed by Trump on nations around the world were illegal and that the President had exceeded his authority when he imposed the sweeping levies.
Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court justices who ruled against him, calling them "fools and lapdogs”. “The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I'm ashamed of certain members of the Court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country,” Trump said in a news conference at the White House Friday, just hours after the verdict came in.
At the news conference, Trump again repeated his claim that he had solved the war between India and Pakistan last summer using the threat of tariffs, asserted that New Delhi, at his request, “pulled way back” from buying Russian oil and said that the ruling would have no effect on the trade deal that Washington and New Delhi announced earlier this month. He also spoke about his “great” relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
ALSO READ: Supreme Court strikes down Trump's sweeping tariffs, upending central plank of economic agenda
When asked whether the framework for an interim agreement on trade with India, expected to be signed soon, stands in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, Trump said “nothing changes”.
“Nothing changes. They'll (India) be paying tariffs, and we will not be paying tariffs. So deal with India is they pay tariffs. This is a reversal for what it used to be. As you know, India and I think Prime Minister Modi is a great gentleman, a great man, actually, but he was much smarter than the people that he was against in terms of the United States, he was ripping us off. So we made a deal with India. It's a fair deal now, and we are not paying tariffs to them, and they are paying tariffs. We did a little flip,” Trump said.
“The India deal is on…all the deals are on, we're just going to do it” in a different way, Trump said.
To another question on his relationship with India, he said, “I think my relationship with India is fantastic and we're doing trade with India. India pulled out of Russia. India was getting its oil from Russia. And they pulled way back at my request because we want to settle that horrible war where 25,000 people are dying every month,” Trump said.
He said his relationship with Prime Minister Modi “is, I would say, great.”
Trump then went on to repeat the claim, twice within the press conference, that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan using tariffs.
“I also stopped the war between India and Pakistan. As you know, there were 10 planes were shot down. That war was going and probably going nuclear. And just yesterday, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved 35 million lives by getting them to stop,” Trump said.
“And I did it largely with tariffs. I said, ‘Look, you're going to fight, that's fine, but you're not going to do business with the United States, and you're going to pay a 200% tariff, each country’. And they called up and they said, ‘we have made peace’,” Trump said.
On Thursday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace on Gaza. At that meeting, Trump had said he threatened to put 200 per cent tariffs on India and Pakistan if they didn’t stop the fighting, reiterating the claim he stopped the war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Earlier this month, as the US and India announced they reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on trade, Trump issued an Executive Order removing the 25 per cent punitive tariffs imposed on India for its purchases of Russian oil, with the US President noting the commitment by New Delhi to stop directly or indirectly importing energy from Moscow and purchasing American energy products.
Under the trade deal, Washington would charge a reduced reciprocal tariff on New Delhi, lowering it from 25 per cent to 18 per cent.
In his remarks at the press conference, Trump said he used tariffs to end the war between India and Pakistan, as he lashed out at the Supreme Court for its decision to strike down his sweeping tariffs imposed on countries around the world.
“Tariffs have likewise been used to end five of the eight wars that I settled. I settled eight wars, whether you like it or not, including India, Pakistan, big ones, nuclear, could have been nuclear,” Trump said.
“Prime Minister of Pakistan said yesterday at the great meeting that we had the peace board. He said yesterday that President Trump could have saved 35 million lives by getting us to stop fighting. They were getting ready to do some bad things. But they've given us great national security, these tariffs have,” he said.
Within hours of the Supreme Court ruling, Trump signed a Proclamation imposing a “temporary import duty” to “address fundamental international payments problems and “continue the Administration’s work to rebalance our trade relationships to benefit American workers, farmers, and manufacturers.”
The Proclamation imposes, for a period of 150 days, a 10 per cent ad valorem import duty on articles imported into the United States. The temporary import duty will take effect on February 24 at 12:01 a.m.
