On March 8th, 29 year old Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE officers, but why was he arrested and does this set a dangerous precedent for free speech in America?

The first right in the American Bill of Rights is the right to free speech, but many believe that right was undermined when on Saturday Khalil was detained by ICE seemingly for his role in organising pro Palestinian protests in Columbia University. Khalil currently holds a green card, meaning that he has legal permanent residence in the USA, but ICE have said they will revoke it at request of the US government.

Trump posted on his social media website “Truth Social” that the Palestinian American was arrested for being “pro-Hamas” and “antisemitic”, though official charges are yet to be brought on Khalil. Trump has also threatened to revoke funding from universities who do not stop pro Palestinian protests, having revoked $400mln from Columbia just days before Khalil’s arrest.

“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,”-Mahmoud Khalil to CNN

Khalil was granted permanent residence in 2024, his wife is an American citizen and is eight months pregnant. He also worked in the British embassy in Beirut, Lebanon from 2018-2022. The only ways he could be deported is if he is found to have committed certain crime(s) or, what is more likely to be argued, affiliated with a terrorist organisation and a threat to national security.

Khalil also sent an email to the President of Columbia university the night before his arrest saying he felt unprotected by the university against detention by ICE or harmful actions by other individuals.

In a court hearing on Wednesday, the judge delayed his deportation and ordered both sides, Mahmoud’s and the governments legal teams, to submit justifications on where further court hearings should be held. Mahmoud’s team argue he should be tried in New York, where he resided and was arrested, but the government want to try him in New Jersey or Louisiana; the former being where he was initially held some 15 miles from his New York apartment and the latter where he was transferred days later, some 1300 miles from his residence. Commentators, including Mahmoud’s legal team, accuse the government of attempting to try him in a court more likely to deport him and to distance him from his support, friends and family in New York.

The next steps in the legal process are yet to be agreed upon, with both sides being ordered to submit a suggested schedule for review. Many question whether free speech is still adequately protected, the governments legal argument, according to Mahmoud’s lawyers, was based on a provision that allows the secretary of state, currently former Florida senator Marco Rubio, can determine if an individual should be deported if they pose a threat to US foreign policy. Despite claims by opponents of Mahmoud, he has never made any pro Hamas statements. This calls into question the safety of those advocating for Palestinian rights and freedom, and if the government has adopted the stance that standing against war crimes will be branded as terrorism.