Agents from US President Donald Trump’s administration arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played a prominent role in last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at New York’s Columbia University, four fellow students have said, Reuters reports.
The student, Mahmoud Khalil, at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested by US Department of Homeland Security agents at his university residence on Saturday, said undergraduate student Maryam Alwan and three other students who asked not to be identified, citing fears of reprisals.
Khalil’s detention appears to be one of the first efforts by Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, to fulfill his promise to seek the deportation of some foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement.
A spokesperson for Columbia said the school was barred by law from sharing information about individual students.
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