Who is Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian student activist facing deportation from the US?

Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist who played a prominent role in the Columbia University student protests over the past year, was picked up on Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from his apartment in New York City.

In the hours that followed, a machinery of disinformation went to work, as the Trump administration began accusing him of being a supporter of "terrorism" and for having "led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation".

Leading political figures from US President Donald Trump to Secretary of State Marco Rubio piled on to Khalil, while pro-Israel social media accounts in the US applauded his arrest.

In a statement issued earlier this week, his legal team said that the president's remarks show that Khalil was "chosen as an example to stifle entirely lawful dissent in violation of the First Amendment".

"While tomorrow or thereafter the government may cite the law or process, that toothpaste is out of the tube and irreversibly so. The government’s objective is as transparent as it is unlawful, and our role as Mahmoud’s lawyers is to ensure it does not prevail," the statement sent to journalists on Monday, read.

Though the Trump administration has looked to demonise Khalil, calling him a "radical foreign pro-Hamas student", Columbia's student community paints a completely different picture of the activist.

Who is Mahmoud Khalil?

Khalil was born in 1995 and raised in Syria, where his family had lived as refugees for decades following their forced removal from the city of Tiberias in Palestine during the Nakba in 1948.

After the war in Syria began over a decade ago, Khalil's family sought refuge outside of the country, with many ending up in Europe and other parts of the Middle East.

Between 2018 and 2022, Khalil worked at the Syria Office in the British embassy in Beirut.

Andrew Waller, a former British diplomat, who worked at the embassy during Khalil's time in Beirut, described Khalil "as an extremely kind and conscientious person and he was loved by his colleagues at the Syria Office".

Waller rubbished Trump's description of Khalil as grounds for defamation.

"You couldn't find anyone who'd say a bad word about him. He was very good at his job," he told Middle East Eye, adding that Khalil had gone "through a vetting process to get the job and was cleared to work on sensitive issues for the British government".

Following his work in Beirut, in 2022 Khalil was accepted into the master’s programme in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, commonly known by its acronym, Sipa. 

Mahmoud completed his degree in December 2024 and is expected to graduate in May 2025. 

In November 2023, Khalil married a US citizen and became a permanent resident of the US in 2024.

When Khalil was detained on Saturday night, his eight-month-pregnant wife was beside him and was herself threatened with arrest if she continued to protest against what was unfolding.

According to his lawyers, the plain-clothed ICE agents put him into an unmarked vehicle and left her with no information on where he would be taken or how to reach him.

It was only on Monday morning that she found out he had been taken to an ICE facility more than two thousand kilometres away in Louisiana.

Intimidation at Columbia

When the protests began at Columbia University, following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel and the subsequent war on Gaza, Khalil functioned as an intermediary between students and university administrators over the student movement's demands for university divestment from weapons companies profiting from Israel's war on the besieged enclave.

Khalil did not participate in the encampments himself, opting instead to negotiate with administrators and offer guidance to the students.

Several colleagues and friends described Khalil as a mentor, an elder brother, and an inspirational figure to the student community.

They said that Khalil felt it was his responsibility to speak out on Palestinian rights under the rubric of international law. He was also a strong advocate for the fair treatment of all students.

"I just think he's brave, because empathy always overshadowed any possible risk that could come to him," Maryam Alwan, a Columbia student and a friend of Khalil, told MEE.

"He was on a student visa back when the encampment happened and he still stood in front of every microphone with his full face and met with the administration despite all the threats of government officials collaborating with donors in the WhatsApp chats," Alwan said, referring to revelations that several American billionaires had set up a private group chat with city officials to shape public opinion during the first six months of Israel's war on Gaza.

'Columbia University students stand by him, and we do not want business as usual while he is being detained'

- Student at Columbia

The Washington Post reported at the time that amongst those in the group included Howard Schultz, the then-CEO of Starbucks; Michael Dell, the founder of Dell; as well as Joshua Kushner, a financier and brother to Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. 

Alwan said that despite the administration's and mainstream media's periodic efforts to paint the protests as antisemitic, Khalil "was always standing in front of a camera, and he would always talk about how he felt guilty because he couldn't do more for his people facing genocide".

"I can't bear to imagine him like right now, not feeling as fearless as he always did. But I know that his heart would make him care more about the cause than anything that happens to him," the 22-year-old Alwan added.

According to friends and colleagues at Sipa, Khalil had been at the receiving end of bullying and intimidation by pro-Israel and Zionist students for months at the department in which he studied.

They described him as handling the attacks with patience and grace.

One graduate student at Sipa, who asked to be identified by her first name only, said she admired him for his level-headedness in the high-stress environment.

"He is just super kind, really, just like the consummate diplomat; just very good at getting along with folks and being friendly, super smart."

Another student at Sipa who identifies as Jewish and asked not to be named over fear of reprisals from pro-Israeli classmates, told MEE that Khalil repeatedly faced doxxing on social media, as well as aggressive comments from fellow students in online student groups. 

"Some members of this doxxing campaign are not only a part of the Columbia community but are part of the Columbia Sipa community.

"These are people he was expected to go to class with, and he was expected to feel safe around. It created an impossible situation [for him]," the student added. 

Earlier in March, Khalil said the university had levelled more than a dozen accusations against him, involving several social media posts that had nothing to do with him.

After his lawyer intervened, the university reneged on threats to hold back his transcript and halt his graduation.

In his habeas corpus petition filed over the weekend, his lawyers describe Khalil as having experienced "a profound doxing campaign for over two months related to his First Amendment protected activities in support of Palestinian human rights".

"The harassment was so pervasive that Mahmoud emailed the Columbia University administration repeatedly asking for support," the lawyers wrote.

Others who continuously looked to vilify him, according to Khalil, included Shai Davidai, the Columbia professor who described Khalil as a "terrorist supporter" and publicly suggested that he be deported.

Following Khalil's arrest, Davidai wrote that "Khalil’s potential deportation is the direct consequence of the choices he has made".

Khalil was also targeted by the ultra-Zionist, Jewish supremacist group Betar USA, which said that he was on their "deport list".