Rep. Frost on ICE arrest of Columbia graduate: ‘This should scare everyone'
Democratic lawmakers are condemning the arrest of a former Columbia University student by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the revocation of his legal status in the United States, with Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) warning it should 'scare everyone.'
'This should scare everyone. The Trump admin revoked Mahmoud's legal status, kidnapped him, and is now holding him in an ICE detention facility without any due process,' Frost wrote on the social platform X on Monday.
'Trump is an authoritarian, testing the limits to see how much he can get away with. He won't stop here,' Frost continued.
Earlier on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that Mahmoud Khalil, a green card-holding Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist, was detained by ICE.
'We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,' Rubio wrote on X, sharing a news report regarding Khalil.
Other House Democrats have also condemned the arrest. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said Khalil's arrest is a violation of his first amendment rights.
'If they can target Mahmoud Khalil's First Amendment rights, they can target yours. The whole point of the First Amendment is that it protects speech – even if it's unpopular or you don't like what they have to say,' she said in a post on X Monday.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) also took to X to condemn the arrest, calling it a 'McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of first amendment rights to free speech.'
Nadler said he was monitoring the details of the case.
'I am monitoring the situation regarding the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and look forward to receiving additional information regarding the specifics of this case,' he said on X.
'Such action is a frightening violation of immigration law that will not make Jewish students safer on campus and will only feed the Trump Administration's political war on education and hollow lip service on discrimination against minorities,' Nadler added.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said, 'If the federal government can disappear a legal US permanent resident without reason or warrant, then they can disappear US citizens too.'
'Anyone – left, right, or center – who has highlighted the importance of constitutional rights + free speech should be sounding the alarm now,' she said in an X post.
A post from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats' official X account shared a picture of Khalil on Monday and demanded his release.
Replying to the post, the White House account wrote, ''This is the first arrest of many to come.' —President Trump'.
Khalil was reportedly arrested at his university residence on Saturday. He has been described by the Student Workers of Columbia labor union as a 'lead negotiator' during pro-Palestine protests held on the campus last year.
He had called on Columbia to reinstate its 'Sanctuary Campus Policy' following reports that ICE accessed multiple buildings at the school Friday and Saturday.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told The Associated Press, that Khalil's arrest was 'in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.'
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