'Green card holders have rights' - immigration lawyer on Mahmoud Khalil's arrest by ICE

Record ID: 1983222

  • Title: 'Green card holders have rights' - immigration lawyer on Mahmoud Khalil's arrest by ICE
  • Date: 10th March 2025
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (MARCH 10, 2025) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) CYRUS D. MEHTA & PARTNERS, MANAGING PARTNERS, CYRUS MEHTA, SAYING [REFERRING TO THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION]: “They’re justifying it based on an executive order that Trump issued that would authorize the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] to use the Immigration Act to go after students w
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Columbia University Cyrus Mehta Donald Trump ICE NYC Palestinian protests President USA activist due process green card immigration attorney
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA00G762210032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The Palestinian student activist at New York's Columbia University detained as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on some anti-Israel protesters has been moved to a federal jail for migrants in Louisiana to await deportation proceedings, according to a U.S. detainee database.
    The transfer to Louisiana came as lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, began their legal challenge to his arrest at his Columbia apartment building in the U.S. district court in Manhattan.
    “Green card holders have rights. They just cannot be picked up in the way he has been and detained incognito,” explained immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta, managing partner at Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners in New York City. “The person should have been convicted of a crime, a deportable offense. I don't believe Mr. Khalil has been convicted of such an offense, from what I know.”
    "This is the first arrest of many to come," Trump wrote in a social media post on Monday (March 10), as Khalil's supporters began protesting in Manhattan for what they say is an attack on freedom of speech. Khalil has been a prominent figure in Columbia's pro-Palestinian student protest movement, which last year roiled campuses.
    The Trump administration has not said Khalil is accused of or charged with a crime, but Trump wrote that his presence in the U.S. was "contrary to national and foreign policy interests."
    Even before Khalil's arrest, students say federal immigration agents have been spotted at student housing around Columbia's Manhattan campus since Thursday (March 6), a day before the Trump administration announced it was canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts awarded to the school.
    Khalil was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents at his university residence on Saturday (March 8) evening, the Student Workers of Columbia labor union said in a statement.
    His wife is a U.S. citizen, eight months pregnant, according to news reports, and he holds a U.S. permanent residency green card, the union said. His arrest was condemned by civil rights groups as an attack on protected political speech.
    In an interview with Reuters hours before his arrest on Saturday about Trump's criticism of student protesters, Khalil said he was concerned that he was being targeted by the government for speaking to the media.
    (Production: Christine Kiernan)
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