The US Court temporarily blocks efforts to deport the gas protest

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s experience to deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested over the weekend by immigration agents.

G -H Khalil, a graduate of the University of Colombia and a permanent resident of the United States, played a key role in last year’s protests for the Gaza war at the Ivy League campus in New York.

The arrest is part of the promise of President Donald Trump to overcome the propalist protesters in the college campuses, what he called “the first arrest of many who come.”

Protesters gathered in New York on Monday afternoon, demanding the release of Halil and condemned the Trump administration’s actions.

A crowd, waving Palestinian flags, gathered in Foley Square at the Lower Manhattan Foli after it was reported that the United States had tried to deport Halil. Later, protesters went south to the mayoralty. At least one person was detained.

“We are faced with a terrifying reality that our student, a member of the Colombia Community, has become a political prisoner here in the United States,” said Colombia University Professor Michael Tadeus.

The judge has put a hearing on Wednesday, where Halil is expected to appear, according to court documents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (ICE) informed G -n Khalil that they canceled his student visa and a green card after taking him in custody on Saturday, his lawyer said.

The Department of Internal Security (DHS) has accused the former student of “leading activities brought in line with Hamas” but did not provide details. The BBC has asked the agency additional information about the allegations.

Earlier, Trump said that foreign students settled as “terrorist sympathizers” and would face deportation. Halil is the first known detained in this policy.

His lawyer Amy Greer condemned his detention as “terrible and vast”, calling him part of the “open repression of the US government and political speech.”

Halil, a Palestinian refugee who was born in Syria, has not been charged with any crime.

Ice agents detained him in his university apartment in Manhattan and initially placed him at an immigration establishment in New Jersey before transferring him to a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, according to Ice Records.

His lawyer claims that Ice also threatens to arrest his wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant. When she tried to visit him in New Jersey, employees told her she wasn’t there.

The University of Colombia said that law enforcement agencies could enter the campus property by order, but denied that the university’s management had invited ice agents.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the administration’s position, posting to X: “We will cancel the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so that they can be deported.”

The Trump administration announced last week that it was canceling $ 400 million (310 million pounds) at Colombia’s federal grants, accusing it of incapable of fighting anti -Semitism in the campus.

Colombia was the epicenter last year of propalist student protests across the country against the Gaza war and US support for Israel.

Halil was a leading negotiator for apartheid at the University of Colombia when protesters placed a huge camp on the tent of the university lawn in protest of the war in Gaza.

Later, he told the BBC that he was temporarily suspended by the university where he was a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

The President of the Union of Civil Freedoms in New York Donna Lieberman called his deportation “aimed revenge and an extreme attack on the first amendment.”

New York Prosecutor James James said he was “extremely concerned” and was watching the case.

Some Jewish students in Colombia have said that protest rhetoric has sometimes crossed the line in anti -Semitism, while others have joined the propalist demonstrations.

Carly, a Jewish graduate student in Colombia and a friend of Mr Halil, told the BBC that the detainee was “a very, very caring soul”.

“He was very targeted online and just saw how he was so wrongly represented that he was very painful as someone who knows him at a personal level,” said Carly, who declined to share his last name for confidentiality reasons.

Speaking on Fox News, Trump’s border Tom Tom Homan claims that Halil has violated the conditions of his visa by “locking buildings and destroying the property.”

The Israeli military began their campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross -border attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which left about 1,200 people killed and 251 took hostage.

More than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza were killed in Israel’s hostilities, according to Hamas’s health ministry.

With additional reporting from NADA TAWFIK