Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil arrested without warrant, Court documents reveal

Six weeks into the detention of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, new court filings on Thursday revealed that federal agents arrested him without a warrant.

Documents filed in a New Jersey federal court show that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is defending its March 8 arrest of Khalil — a legal US resident — by citing concerns that he posed a flight risk after allegedly refusing to cooperate with agents during a sidewalk encounter in Manhattan.

“He stated that he would not cooperate and that he was going to leave the scene,” DHS lawyers claimed in a Monday filing. That moment, they argue, justified the immediate warrantless arrest by Homeland Security Investigations agents, who had been surveilling Khalil.

The revelation comes after weeks of legal efforts to secure Khalil’s release from a detention center in Jena, Louisiana, where he has been held since the arrest. Khalil’s legal team says the government misled an immigration judge by initially asserting that a warrant had existed.

“The government’s admission is astounding… they tried to assert to the immigration judge — and the world — that there was an arrest warrant when there was none,” said Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s attorneys. “This is egregious conduct by DHS that should require, under the law, termination of these proceedings.”

Khalil, a graduate student and prominent spokesperson for pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations at Columbia University, was the first person arrested in what President Donald Trump’s administration has described as a crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism.

Though no criminal charges have been filed, the government argues that Khalil should be deported because his “presence or activities” may have serious foreign policy consequences — a claim immigration judges can consider under US law.

In an earlier ruling, an immigration judge in Louisiana sided with the government, stating the national security justification for Khalil’s removal met legal thresholds.

But civil rights advocates say the arrest — now revealed to be warrantless — smacks of political retaliation.

“This is clearly yet another desperate attempt by the Trump administration to justify its unlawful arrest and detention of human rights defender Mahmoud Khalil,” said Amy Greer, a lawyer who was on the phone with Khalil and the arresting agent the night he was taken into custody.

“He is now, by the government’s own tacit admission, a political prisoner of the United States.”

(With inputs from Associated Press)