@taiwan_girl said in What’s happening at Columbia?:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-authorities-arrest-palestinian-student-protester-columbia-university-students-2025-03-09/
U.S. immigration agents arrested a Palestinian graduate student who has played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at New York's Columbia University, the student workers' labor union said on Sunday.
The student, Mahmoud Khalil at the university's School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents at his university residence on Saturday, the Student Workers of Columbia union said in a statement.
Khalil's detention appears to be one of the first efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, to fulfill his promise to seek the deportation of some foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement. The Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza have led to months of pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled U.S. college campuses.
He was in court yesterday
Over roughly three hours of testimony in a central Louisiana immigration court on Thursday, the student organizer, Palestinian rights advocate and prisoner Mahmoud Khalil described his extraordinary, ordinary life.
He recounted growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, before fleeing the country to Lebanon as activist friends were "disappeared." Much later, he built a new life at Columbia University in New York, where he planned a career in diplomacy, got married and took part in cinema and hiking clubs.
He said he could not have predicted the U.S. then detaining him for months, in what he and his lawyers view as retaliation for his political beliefs — a situation much like the one he once feared in Syria.
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Immigration Judge Jamee Comans limited testimony and argument to Khalil's application for asylum. She dismissed several motions without oral explanation, including a renewed motion by Khalil's attorneys to have the case thrown out over alleged misstatements by the government.
At times, she seemed to have little patience for the case, castigating his lawyers for putting on experts to "regurgitate" their written reports. But she appeared to listen carefully to Khalil's testimony throughout the afternoon.
Comans did not rule on the case Thursday, which she said includes nearly 2,000 pages of evidence. Lawyers will provide written closing arguments which are due on June 2. A ruling is then likely within the next few weeks.
Comans has consistently ruled against Khalil so far. In a prior hearing in April, Comans found that DHS has grounds to deport Khalil under an obscure provision of immigration law, solely because Secretary of State Marco Rubio deemed him a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests.
