The US Justice Department has accused Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student activist responsible for anti-Israel protests on campus who was detained by ICE and faces deportation, of lying about his connections to UNRWA on his green card application, the New York Post reported.
The government stated that Khalil served with UNRWA as a political affairs officer from June 2023 through November 2023, including for a period after the October 7 massacre.
UNRWA has faced significant criticism after it was revealed that a number of its employees took part in the October 7 massacre, including the kidnapping of hostages, and that UNRWA employed a significant number of Hamas members.
Emily Damari, a former Hamas hostage who was freed after 470 days in captivity, has said that she was held at an UNRWA facility while in captivity.
The Justice Department also accused Khalil of failing to disclose his work at the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon and his membership in Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the group he represented during the post-October 7 protests on the Columbia campus. The Justice Department argued that these are grounds for the revocation of his green card and for his deportation from the US.
Khalil was detained by immigration authorities on March 8 as part of the Trump administration’s effort to combat what it describes as antisemitic and “anti-American” campus protests. He previously served as a spokesperson for pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrators opposing Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Last Tuesday, Khalil issued his first public statement since the arrest, accusing both the Trump and Biden administrations of “anti-Palestinian racism”.
“My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the US has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention,” Khalil declared.
“For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand US laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted,” he added.