The White House has complained that Columbia University is refusing to help federal agents find people being sought as part of the government's effort to deport participants in pro-Palestine demonstrations, as the administration continued to punish the school by yanking federal research dollars.
Immigration enforcement agents on Saturday abducted Mahmoud Khalil, a legal US resident and Palestinian activist who played a prominent part in protests at Columbia last year against Israel's carnage in besieged Gaza. He is now facing possible deportation.
President Donald Trump has vowed additional arrests. In a briefing with reporters in Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday federal authorities have been "using intelligence" to identify other people involved in campus demonstrations critical of Israeli aggression.
She said Columbia had been given names and was refusing to help the Department of Homeland Security "to identify those individuals on campus."
"As the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that," Leavitt said.
Last week, the Trump administration announced it was pulling $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia, accusing the school of failing to stop alleged anti-Semitism on campus.
The university was rocked last spring by large demonstrations by students calling for an end to Israeli war on Gaza and a recognition of Palestinians' human rights and territorial claims. The university ultimately called in police to dismantle a protest encampment and end a student takeover of an administration building.
White House defends Khalil's arrest
The White House has defended the arrest of Khalil, who isn't charged with anything related to his activism as of yet.
Leavitt said Secretary of State Marco Rubio "reserves the right to revoke the visa of Mahmoud Khalil" under a 1952 law known as the Immigration and Nationality Act.
"Mahmoud Khalil was an individual who was given the privilege of coming to this country to study at one of our nation's finest universities and colleges, and he took advantage of that opportunity, of that privilege, by siding with terrorists, Hamas, terrorists who have killed innocent men, women and children," she said.
Trump heralded Khalil's arrest as the first "of many to come," vowing on social media to deport students the president described as engaging in "pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity."
Khalil, who finished his requirements for a Columbia master's degree in December, and protest leaders have said they are anti-war, not anti-Semitic. They note that some Jewish students and groups have joined the demonstrations.
Born in Syria, Khalil is a grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a legal filing. It didn't address his citizenship but said his relatives have been displaced anew amid Syria's civil war and are now in other countries.
Khalil is married to a US citizen, who is expecting their first child.
"For everyone reading this, I urge you to see Mahmoud through my eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby," his wife, who has not been publicly identified, wrote in a statement provided by his lawyers. "I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we welcome our first child into this world."
