Authorities said Friday that federal agents arrested a Palestinian student who had participated in the protest at Columbia University last spring and promoted his student visa.
The student was identified by the Homeland Security Department as a Palestinian Laiqa Kordia from the West Bank, before he was arrested for his participation in the protest. Officials said his visa was terminated in January 2022 due to lack of attendance.
Immigration officers from New Jersey, Field Office, on Tuesday, pursued the suicide of Ranjani Srinivasan, a Colombian student from India, on Tuesday, accused of supporting Hamas. The State Department canceled its visa a week ago.
“It is an honor to grant a visa in the United States to stay and study in the United States,” said DHS Secretary Christ. “When you advocate violence and terrorism that privileges should be canceled, and you should not be in this country.”
The latest arrest came when Colombian students say they feared that they and their friends could be unfairly targeted during a tense climate on the campus, while federal agents executed a search warrant at two university residences.
The US Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanc, said Friday that the Department of Justice is working with the DHS as part of an investigation into Colombia’s “shelter and hiding illegal foreigners on its campus”.
While school officials told students that on Thursday night, DHS agents made no arrests when two students entered the rooms and no goods were seized, the superiority of foreign students remained intact.
The Ivy League campus in Upper Manhattan has recently seen new demonstrations in recent days following the arrest of Mahmud Khalil, a graduating student and legal permanent resident of Colombia in recent days, who were involved in public talks during last year’s schools.
Many students contacted NBC News, refused to comment on it, but some who were willing to speak demand that the government should not be named for fear of retaliation.
“It was just months ago,” said a British engineering student who participated in Palestinian pro -Palestinian demonstrations in the spring during the war in Gaza. The student said he was worried about campus raids and other potential intervention by the federal government.
The student said, “This too is, you do not know the scope of the people they are trying to target because thousands of students were involved in it. It happened on the camera,” the student added, “Logically nothing is going to happen to me, but this is the pressure.”
Colombia’s American students are revolving around their international counterparts, as well as federal agents, after searching for both students’ residences.
Another student, who is an American, said that when he reads the email of Colombia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong, he informs the students that the DHS has served the university with a judicial search warrant signed by the Federal Magistrate Judge.
“This is terrible,” said a junior. School is doing everything in its power to do its best to keep students safe, but I think it’s a limit that they are able to do. ” “Last night was proof of this limit.”
On the latest search warrant, 22 -year -old Sebastian Javadpur said he was “angry”.
Javadpur, which guides the Democratic Club, led by university students, said he and a dozen other students met with school officials to show their fears.
“We have students who are so afraid of the possibility of retaliation, about the possibility of retaliation, that they are very afraid to call public safety if something happens,” he said. “They are very afraid of calling NYPD. They are also afraid of cooperating and serving from the administration.”
His lawyers said that immigration and customs enforcement agents arrested Khalil as part of an attempt to revoke his green card and deport him. Algerian citizen and Palestinian supporter Khalil, 30, was married to an American citizen and was arrested in a residential building owned by a university.
“The Secretary of State has vowed that your presence or activities in the United States will have serious negative results of foreign policy for the United States,” Homeland Security Department said in a document obtained by NBC News.
Currently they are being held in a detention facility in Louisiana, where government officials want them to stay. His lawyers argue that he should return to New York and the administration’s actions violate the first amendment.
The removal of Khalil from the campus has come up a few days after the Trump administration’s announcement that it will cancel the $ 400 million federal grant to the university, “because of the constant school of school despite the permanent harassment of Jewish students.”
The administration says the school must make rapid changes in the policy, including a ban on masks, which “intended to hide or threaten others” and “The full law enforcement authority, which includes the arrest and elimination of the angry people, said that they would work with the help of the Colombia and to protect them.” It is determined to ensure. “
A DHS spokesman said that Khalil’s arrest was in harmony with the ICE and the State Department “” Jewish enmity in support of President Trump’s executive orders “because Khalil” Activities for Hamas, a designated terrorist organization “.
His arrest was just one of the latest acts to roam the campus after the last academic year, when students occupied the Hamilton Hall, which led to dozens of arrests on charges of misconduct. While eventually all relevant charges were eventually left, School said on Thursday It has suspended or removed some students who participated and temporarily canceled some diplomas of graduates.
On Friday, dozens of police barriers surrounded the university’s central entrance. The gates of the university, which were once opened to all New Yorkrs, were closed when students shone their seeds to go to class, changed past police officers, news cameras and campus security herds.
Some students participated in the walk on Friday afternoon in response to Khalil’s arrest and student restrictions.
University leaders want to unite teachers-and possibly some students-how the Columbia Trump administration can best defend the independence of the school by facing the unprecedented pressure of the Trump administration, as it causes some international students who are engaged in college campuses.
Some faculty members feel that the Trump administration demands that Colombia change how the university runs away and it includes basic bias of the university. They hope that the moment will use to give rise to the debate about what the university means.
“How do we stop the university from being divided?” An administrator, who asked not to be named because he was not publicly authorized to speak, said about the mood between the university faculty and the staff. “People are more based on what we need to do to defend the university.”
A graduate student from India said she wanted to join students ‘protests about removal of Khalil’s campus in recent days, but feared to do so that she could risk her students’ visas.
The 29 -year -old said, “Your free speech has been stopped. As students, you should get such rights, but you should not do so.”
