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SvennoJ on 09 March 2025
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Rubio says US will be revoking visas of ‘Hamas supporters’

In a brief post on X, the US secretary of state said, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

Rubio was responding to an AP news report that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) arrested a Palestinian graduate student who played a prominent role in last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at New York’s Columbia University.

As we’ve been reporting, Mahmoud Khalil, who studied at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested at his university residence on Saturday, the Student Workers of Columbia union said in a statement.

Khalil’s wife is a US citizen and he has a permanent residency green card, the union said.



New York politicians slam Columbia student’s arrest

Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a New York State Assembly member, has called for the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil following his arrest over the pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University last year.

“The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder whose wife is eight months pregnant—is a blatant assault on the First Amendment,” Mamdani wrote in a post on X, also describing the move as “a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump”.

Tiffany Caban, a New York City Council member, also called Mahmoud’s arrest “appalling and unacceptable”.

“We must say loud and clear: Free Mahmoud,” she wrote in a post on X.

Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin, served as a negotiator for Columbia students as they bargained with university officials over an end to the tent encampment erected on campus last year, a role that made him one of the most visible activists in support of the movement.