MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, Manhattan (PIX11) – Following the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate, another student protester is now in federal immigration custody. This has sparked widespread criticism from various university members.
"It's a preposterous breach of human rights," said a recent graduate, who declined to give his name, as he talked about the Monday arrest of general studies undergraduate Mohsen Mahdawi. "All of it is horrible," he added.
Mahdawi is a green card holder who, on Monday, went to a meeting in his home state of Vermont, which officials told him was the last step in gaining U.S. citizenship. Instead, the 34-year-old former leader of pro-Palestinian protests was taken into custody.
The move occurred while Mahdawi's fellow pro-Palestinian protester, Mahmoud Khalil, fights a deportation order from a detention facility where he's being held in Louisiana.
Roee Billuar is a Columbia student who spoke with PIX11 News about the situation. He said that he'd emigrated to the U.S. from Israel as a child. He also made one other thing clear. "I don't agree with a lot of what Mahmoud Khalil believed," Billuar said, "but I think that arresting people without any sort of proof of anything he did is going to harm our country in the future, and really shouldn't be done in any case."
Billuar's friend Yoni Savranski agreed. Like Billuar, he said that he has never supported the pro-Palestinian protests. However, he said, "Just knowing that something like that can happen to somebody so close by, does kind of feel a little uneasy. [It] does kind of feel like we don't know what could happen to us."
On Tuesday, Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia University sent out a letter to the Columbia community that addressed issues facing the university and its alumni.
"This has provoked not only anxiety," the letter said, in part, "but multiple new, day-to-day challenges for our international student community. For that reason, the University launched a new University fund, supported by my office, our Board of Trustees, and generous alumni, to assist students who need help managing unanticipated expenses and other challenges right now."
PIX11 News reached out to the Dept. of Homeland Security for comment. It is referring questions regarding the arrests to the Department of State, which has not yet commented.
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