Court document claims ‘potentially serious foreign policy consequences’ amid outcry over Palestinian activist’s arrest

The US government is relying on a rarely used provision of the law to try to deport a prominent Palestinian activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University, where he was a leader in last year’s campus protests.

A government charging document addressed to Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident and green card holder who is currently being held in a Louisiana detention center, said that secretary of state Marco Rubio “has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

The Trump administration is not interested in combating antisemitism. It just wants to silence its opponents instead

On Saturday night, agents of the Department of Homeland Security arrested and detained the Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil. He is still in Ice custody in a remote Louisiana lockup known for extreme human rights violations, from denial of food and water to medical “care” verging on torture.

Khalil, a Palestinian Syrian, emerged as a leader in Columbia’s Gaza solidarity encampment last year and a level-headed negotiator with university officials on behalf of the student protesters. Married to a US citizen, he holds a green card. Neither his American wife, who is eight months pregnant, nor his lawyers were warned of the arrest or told where he would be held.

As the US ramps up enforcement, scenes of family separation and despair from Trump’s first term are repeated

The United States has resumed placing immigrant families in detention, re-embracing harrowing operations where scenes unfold such as toddlers learning to walk under the supervision of private prison corporations and children marking their birthdays at government facilities they can’t leave.

If the Obama and first Trump administrations are anything to go by, parents will have to watch their little ones go hungry without familiar foods, the kinds families cook if their children aren’t stuck in so-called “baby jails”.

US state threatens removal and at least one year in prison for lawmakers who support ‘sanctuary city’ ordinances

Tennessee is known for taking a stricter line on immigration enforcement than many other US states. Now it has taken a step that has Democrats raising the alarm: threatening a minimum of one year in prison for lawmakers who vote the so-called wrong way on immigration policy.

In January, the state general assembly passed legislation, by about a three-to-one majority, to make it a felony for a local lawmaker, such as a school board member or a city councilperson, to vote affirmatively on a local ordinance that adopts any “sanctuary city” policy of noncompliance with federal immigration law enforcement officials.

Key figure in pro-Palestinian campus protests arrested by Ice known for kindness and skill for de-escalation

Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia University graduate who was detained by Ice on Saturday night, was linked by Donald Trump, without evidence, to “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”. But for those who know him, Khalil was a student, a steady negotiator and a leader whose activism placed him at the center of a national movement for Palestinian solidarity.

Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder who is currently in immigration detention in Louisiana, was a lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a role that thrust him into the spotlight during the pro-Palestinian encampment protests last spring – long before his high-profile arrest. He gained a reputation among fellow protesters as a principled and strategic organizer, earning praise for his ability to de-escalate tense situations.