Immigration officers arrested Mahmoud Khalil in March 2025, beginning a detention that would keep the Columbia graduate and lawful permanent resident far from his wife and newborn son. The government invoked immigration law rather than filing a criminal charge. His lawyers challenged the detention as punishment for his role in pro-Palestinian campus organizing.
Other students and scholars faced similar interventions. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts doctoral student who had co-authored an opinion piece about Gaza, was detained in Massachusetts and transferred to Louisiana. Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested when he attended a citizenship interview in Vermont. Authorities also pursued removal proceedings against Columbia undergraduate Yunseo Chung.
These cases differ in their immigration histories and the grounds officials cited. Khalil and Mahdawi held green cards; others were studying or working under visas. Their lawyers have argued that the government used those differences in status to punish speech that would otherwise be protected.
Immigration detention is a civil process, but its consequences are immediate: confinement, separation from family, disrupted study and reduced access to lawyers. Winning release does not necessarily end a removal case, and a challenge to detention may proceed in a different court from the immigration proceedings.
For NPPC, the central concern is whether people are being deprived of their liberty because of their political activity. That question requires scrutiny of the government's evidence in each case, including the reasons for arrest and the decisions to transfer and continue holding someone.
