Gaza student protest leader held by US immigration agents

US President Donald Trump has said a leader of last year's Gaza war protests at Columbia University in New York City faces deportation after he was detained over the weekend.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents told Syrian-born Mahmoud Khalil they were revoking his student visa and green card when they took him into custody on Saturday, his attorney said.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the former student had "led activities aligned to Hamas", without providing details. The BBC has asked the agency for further information on the allegations.

The pro-Palestinian activist's lawyer, Amy Greer, said his detention was "terrible and inexcusable" and followed "the US government's open repression of student activism and political speech". Mr Khalil has not been charged so far with any crime.

Mr Khalil was detained at his university-owned apartment in Manhattan and initially taken to an immigration holding facility in New Jersey after his arrest, according to ICE's online locator.

His attorney said he is a legal permanent resident with a green card and married to an American citizen, who is eight months' pregnant. ICE agents also threatened to arrest Mr Khalil's wife, his attorney said.

When his wife tried to visit Mr Khalil in New Jersey, she was told he was not there, according to his lawyer.

The ICE online locator indicated on Monday that Mr Khalil was being detained at a facility in the town of Jena, Louisiana.

In a post on social media on Monday, President Trump said Mr Khalil's arrest was the first of "many to come".

He said any foreign students in the US who were found to be "terrorist sympathizers" would face deportation.

Mr Khalil is the first known person to be detained as a part of Trump's pledges to crack down on those protesting over the war in Gaza.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Monday she was "extremely concerned" about the arrest.

"My office is monitoring the situation, and we are in contact with his attorney," she said.

Columbia said in a statement that law enforcement agents can enter university property if they produce a warrant.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a news story on X about the arrest of Mr Khalil, commenting: "We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported".

The Trump administration announced last week it was rescinding $400m (£310m) in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

Columbia was the epicentre last year of pro-Palestinian student protests nationwide against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

Mr Khalil was lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest when its protesters set up a huge tent encampment on the university lawn in protest against the Gaza war.

Some students also took control of an academic building for several hours before police entered the campus to arrest more than 100 protesters. Mr Khalil was not in that group.

He later told the BBC he had been temporarily suspended by the university, where he was a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Some Jewish students at Columbia have said that rhetoric at the demonstrations at times crossed the line into antisemitism. Other Jewish students on campus have joined the pro-Palestinian protests.

Carly, a Jewish-American graduate student at Columbia and a friend of Mr Khalil, told the BBC that the detainee was a "very, very caring soul".

"He has been very targeted online and just seeing how he has been so misrepresented, it's very painful, as someone who knows him on a personal level," said Carly, who declined to share her surname for privacy reasons.

Speaking on Fox News, Trump's border tsar Tom Homan alleged that Mr Khalil had violated the terms of his visa by "locking down buildings and destroying property".

The Israeli military launched its campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack into Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage.

More than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel's military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

With additional reporting from Nada Tawfik