The professor at the center of the Columbia University deportation scandal is a former Israeli intelligence official, MintPress News can reveal. Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the university’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), was abducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday for his role in organizing protests last year against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Khalil’s dean, Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.
by Alan Macleod
Part 2 - Unprecedented Protests, Unprecedented Repression
Columbia was the epicenter of a massive protest movement across university campuses nationwide last year. It is estimated that at least eight percent of all American college students participated in demonstrations denouncing the genocidal attack on Gaza and calling on educational institutions to divest from Israel. The response was equally vast in its scale. Well over 3,000 protestors were arrested, including faculty members themselves.
The nationwide movement began at Columbia on April 17, when a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors were shocked when university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the New York Police Department – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.
Mahmoud Khalil was among the leaders of the movement. The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee was willing to speak calmly and cogently to the press about the protest’s goals. A permanent resident of the United States, he was abducted by ICE on Saturday.
The nationwide movement began at Columbia on April 17, when a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors were shocked when university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the New York Police Department – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.
Mahmoud Khalil was among the leaders of the movement. The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee was willing to speak calmly and cogently to the press about the protest’s goals. A permanent resident of the United States, he was abducted by ICE on Saturday.
“ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come,” President Trump stated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s ominous threat, announcing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” In another clear threat, the Trump administration moved to cancel $400 million in funding to Columbia University, citing the institution’s failure to sufficiently crack down on “antisemitic” incidents on campus.
Khalil’s eight-month pregnant wife was initially told that he had been taken to a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In fact, he had been moved halfway across the country to a center in Jena, Louisiana. Journalist Pablo Manríquez of Migrant Insider explained that ICE often goes “immigration ‘judge shopping’ by putting detainees in detention centers under jurisdictions of courts that very rarely decide in favor of migrants.”
The very high-profile attempt to deport the holder of a Green Card because of political speech criticizing a foreign government has left many civil rights lawyers deeply worried. Alec Karakatsanis, for example, stated that “I’ve never seen a more clear-cut First Amendment violation, or a more flagrant government declaration of intent to violate blackletter law.” “The government does not claim he committed a crime, just that he held views that the government doesn’t like about Israel. Bone chilling,” he added.
The very high-profile attempt to deport the holder of a Green Card because of political speech criticizing a foreign government has left many civil rights lawyers deeply worried. Alec Karakatsanis, for example, stated that “I’ve never seen a more clear-cut First Amendment violation, or a more flagrant government declaration of intent to violate blackletter law.” “The government does not claim he committed a crime, just that he held views that the government doesn’t like about Israel. Bone chilling,” he added.
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