Columbia Protest Leader Hit With Explosive New Allegations By Feds

Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent anti-Israel agitator who helped stir up protests at Columbia University, is now facing a serious reality check—courtesy of U.S. immigration officials.

As reported by The New York Post, the feds have slammed him with new allegations, claiming he deliberately withheld key details on his green card application, including his involvement with the controversial UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an agency now under fire for connections to Hamas.

Khalil, a 30-year-old native of Syria and an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, entered the U.S. in late 2022 on a student visa to pursue a master’s degree at Columbia University.

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While there, he quickly found a second calling—not in academia, but as a rabble-rouser for anti-Israel causes. Khalil aligned himself with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a fringe group that sparked a firestorm of anti-Semitic demonstrations at the Ivy League campus.

But now, federal prosecutors say Khalil wasn’t just waving signs. He allegedly lied on immigration paperwork by failing to disclose his time as a political affairs officer with UNRWA from June to November 2023.

That’s the same UN agency that lost massive U.S. funding after revelations that some of its staff participated in Hamas’ brutal October 7th attack on Israel. According to the Department of Justice, Khalil also failed to report his role at the Syria Office of the British Embassy in Beirut.

The Department of Homeland Security took Khalil into custody on March 8 in New York. His legal team is crying foul, claiming his arrest is all about his “activism” and that it’s a violation of free speech.

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But the DOJ isn’t buying the spin. In new court filings, federal attorneys flat-out rejected that argument, saying Khalil’s alleged lies on his immigration forms are enough to deport him—regardless of his protests or politics.

“Khalil’s First Amendment allegations are a red herring,” the feds wrote in a no-nonsense filing. They made it clear: free speech doesn’t cancel out the executive branch’s authority over immigration enforcement.

Khalil originally landed in the U.S. with a student visa but applied for permanent residency in 2024 after marrying Noor Abdalla, a U.S. citizen who is now eight months pregnant.

He’s currently detained in Louisiana but is begging a judge to move him closer to his wife in New Jersey or New York. His deportation proceedings remain active, and he’s trying to claim his arrest was “illegal” while fighting to stay in the country.

Meanwhile, Khalil is also suing Columbia University, Barnard College, and Rep. Tim Walberg, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

He’s trying to block the release of disciplinary records for students involved in antisemitic demonstrations—an effort that reeks more of cover-up than civil liberties.

On Monday, Walberg’s legal team fired back, stating, “Nothing in the Constitution requires duly-elected Members of Congress to sit idly by as a wave of antisemitism sweeps over our nation’s college campuses.”