NEW YORK—According to press reports, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last night entered a Columbia University-owned building and detained a recent graduate of Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, who as a student helped lead the Gaza solidarity encampment on campus last spring and negotiated with Columbia’s administration on behalf of student protesters. The agents purported to “revoke” Khalil’s green card while taking him into custody.

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, executive director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“Arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes. It’s genuinely shocking that this appears to be what’s going on right here. Universities must recognize that these actions pose an existential threat to academic life itself. They must make clear, through action, that they will not sit on the sidelines as the Trump administration terrorizes students and faculty alike and runs roughshod over individual rights and the rule of law.”

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].