White House sought real-time updates on arrest of Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Mar 14, 2025

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NEW YORK — The White House sought real-time updates on the status of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil after his arrest by Homeland Security agents who stonewalled his lawyers until he was on the way to rural Louisiana, the Columbia University graduate student’s legal team said in new court filings.

In an amended complaint in Manhattan Federal Court challenging the lawfulness of his detention, Khalil’s lawyers shed light on the speed at which agents moved to transport him out of New York in a tumultuous 16-hour stretch after he was detained at around 8:35 p.m. Saturday after returning from dinner with his pregnant wife.

It detailed how the feds expressed confusion when Khalil presented documents showing his lawful status as a permanent resident to agents who had been awaiting his return at his university apartment, prompting an officer to tell someone on the phone that “he has a green card,” before saying that he was being detained anyway.

The Trump administration has not accused Khalil of breaking any laws but says his participation in campus protests against Israeli military activity in Gaza and Columbia’s investment ties to Israel make him a terrorist sympathizer. They have cited an obscure provision in a 1952 law that empowers Secretary of State Marco Rubio to order anyone deported whose presence he deems a threat to U.S. foreign policy.

Immediately after his arrest, as he was brought to 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan for processing, Khalil heard an agent telling another taking his biometrics that “the White House is requesting an update,” according to his lawyers.

In contrast, they said they couldn’t contact him for days until Manhattan Federal Judge Jesse Furman ordered them to be permitted to do so Wednesday. Furman has temporarily halted Khalil’s removal while he considers his lawyers’ bid to have him released.

Khalil was transported from New York to a privately owned detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, at 3:20 a.m. and driven to Kennedy Airport the following morning. At 2:45 p.m. Sunday, he was put on a plane to Dallas for a connecting flight to Louisiana.

He’s since been sleeping in “a bunker without a pillow or blanket,” according to his lawyers, and waited some three days to be given the medication he needs for an ulcer.

The government has argued that Khalil’s habeas corpus petition shouldn’t be handled in the Southern District of New York because he had been transported to New Jersey about an hour before it was filed at 4:41 a.m. Sunday.

In filings Wednesday, they said it should be transferred to Louisiana as New Jersey never acquired jurisdiction in the eight or so hours he was there, unbeknownst to his attorneys. If it were moved to Louisiana, his lawyers would be required to direct any challenges to court orders to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, among the most conservative in the country.

Khalil’s attorneys, in Thursday’s filing, said the online system to track detainees in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officially placed him at Federal Plaza in Manhattan when they brought their filing.

The grandson of Palestinians who was born in a Syrian refugee camp, Khalil completed his master’s program at Columbia’s School of International Affairs in December and has been set to graduate in May. He played a prominent role in the student-led demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza last year, chosen to facilitate negotiations between staff and students based on his previous work at a British Embassy and the U.N., which his lawyers noted in the filing.

In addition to being a green card holder, Khalil is married to a U.S. citizen. His arrest and detainment on ideological grounds have sparked nationwide protests and alarm on both sides of the political spectrum about the future of free speech under Trump.

In the wake of Khalil’s arrest, Trump posted on his Truth Social website that he would be the first “of many.” He and other administration officials have described any opposition to Israel’s government as antisemitic, with Trump frequently using the word “Palestinian” as a slur, including this week against Jewish Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Khalil has denied characterizations being repeated by top Trump administration officials that his calls for a ceasefire and criticism of the Israeli regime amount to antisemitism and support for Hamas, which the U.S. designates a terrorist group.

“(As) a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other,” he told CNN in September.

Khalil’s attorneys are expected to speak with reporters later Friday for an update on his status.

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