The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, activist for Palestine @ Columbia U

Surprised that (to my knowledge) there hasn’t been much if any discussion here about Mahmoud Khalil. He seems to be the first person that the new administration is trying to make an example of, in their new policy of trying to deport those “aligned with Hamas.”

From a cursory glance he seems to be a pretty run-of-the-mill activist, advocating for BDS at Columbia. Apparently he previously worked for the UN Relief and Works Agency. The pretext for actual detention seems to be that his green card was being revoked, and that one of the sit-ins he organised/participated in was technically trespassing, and maybe that there was some sort of Hamas-written literature involved. (Or that there were things in the pamphlet that could be construed as Hamas talking points, however loosely.)

There’s a Wiki article) on him, which also has these fascinating lines:

After Khalil attended a protest at Barnard College in early March 2025, Ross Glick, a pro-Israel activist, met with aides to United States Senator John Fetterman and Ted Cruz to discuss Khalil.[11] According to Glick, aides to Cruz and Fetterman promised to "escalate" attention to Khalil to their respective senators.[11]

Anyone have any more pertinent info?

[Edit:] Pertinent court documents: https://www.aclu.org/cases/khalil-v-joyce