CNN
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The Trump administration said it is using intelligence collected by the Department of Homeland Security to identify international students who participated in protests against the Israel-Hamas war across dozens of college campuses last year, days after a Palestinian activist was detained by federal agents over protests at Columbia University.
“They have been using intelligence to identify individuals on our nation’s colleges and universities who have engaged in such behavior and activity and especially illegal activity,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a news briefing Tuesday.
Leavitt did not provide more information about the intelligence she said DHS was using for the targeted arrests.
According to Leavitt, DHS has also shared a list of student names with Columbia University and accused the school of not cooperating with White House efforts to identify them.
“Columbia University has been given the names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity, and they are refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus,” Leavitt said. “As the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that and we expect all of America’s colleges and universities to comply with this administration’s policy.”
Columbia University did not immediately return a request for comment.
Leavitt accused Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian student activist arrested by federal agents officers last week, of organizing “group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish-American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda, flyers with the logo of Hamas.”
Khalil, who completed work on his masters degree from Columbia University in December and is a legal resident of the US, was arrested and detained by federal agents after his lawyer said his green card was revoked by the Trump administration.
Neither Leavitt, DHS nor ICE has provided evidence to support their accusations against Khalil or other students. It is not clear whether Khalil, who was transferred to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana over the weekend, has been charged with any crime.
“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,” Leavitt said.
According to court documents, Khalil emailed interim university president Katrina Armstrong the night before his arrest to request her assistance in securing legal support and other protections following what was described as a “dehumanizing doxing campaign against him.” In the email, according to the document, Khalil claimed people were falsely labeling him a “terrorist threat” and calling for his deportation.
Khalil’s attorneys have said he plans to fight the deportation order. CNN has reached out to his attorneys regarding Leavitt’s comments on Tuesday.
A federal judge in New York temporarily halted the deportation until Khalil’s attorneys and the government appear in court. Attorneys for Khalil filed a motion to bring him back to New York on Monday. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
In a statement on Tuesday, Khalil’s wife – a US citizen who is eight months pregnant – referred to him as her “rock.”
“US immigration ripped my soul from me when they handcuffed my husband and forced him into an unmarked vehicle,” she said, while also noting his arrest came as the couple was returning from an iftar dinner, the meal Muslims eat during Ramadan to break their fast.
“Instead of putting together our nursery and washing baby clothes in anticipation of our first child, I am left sitting in our apartment, wondering when Mahmoud will get a chance to call me from a detention center,” she added.
During Tuesday’s briefing, Leavitt said the administration is leaning on the Immigration and Nationality Act to detain Khalil and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interest of the United States of America.”
Khalil’s arrest has generated a slew of demonstrations nationwide, with ones in New York attracting hundreds on Monday and Tuesday.
Tuesday’s protesters in New York carried signs reading “Release Mahmoud Khalil now,” and several confronted police officers during the demonstration.
The New York City Police Department arrested at least 13 people on Tuesday when they blocked a city street and refused to leave the roadway, according to a law enforcement official.
CNN’s Zenebou Sylla and Mark Morales contributed to this report.
