Homeland Security agents conducted a search in the Columbia University student room on Thursday, and as a result, Katrina Armstrong, the school's interim president, shared with an update from the campus community that she was “grief.”
“I am heartbroken tonight to let you know that there were federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security in the two university housing,” she writes. “No one was arrested or detained. The item was not removed and no further action was taken.”
DHS agents served in Colombia with two judicial search warrants signed by a federal magistrate judge.
Details surrounding the searched room and search purposes were not immediately available.
Columbia University punishes students who took over construction during anti-Israel protests
In a letter to the school community on Thursday night, Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong shared that she was “griefed” by a homeland security agent searching the rooms of two students on campus. (AP)
“The university has an obligation to comply with the law,” Armstrong said in part. “Our university public safety has always been there.”
She added that Columbia will “make every effort” to ensure campus and everyone is safe, and that schools are “committed to supporting the law” and that she hopes that “city, state and federal agencies will do the same.”
“We understand the great stress of our community being below. Despite the unprecedented challenges, Columbia University is a place where knowledge pursuits are valued, intensely protected, the rule of law and due process are respected, not for granted, and all members of our community can be valued and shine.
Columbia University was shaken by anti-Israel protests for most of 2024 as students and other participants protested the Israeli war in Gaza on October 7, 2023 in Hamas, prompted by an attack on the Jewish state. (Getty Images)
The search took place less than a week after anti-Israel agitator Mahmoud Khalil, 30, was arrested in his university-owned apartment on suspicion of involvement in a massive Israeli protest in Colombia last year. He is currently in Louisiana ice custody.
Who is Mahmoud Khalil, an anti-Israel Columbia University activist and ice activist?
Although Halil is a permanent resident of the United States, he is a Palestinian and grew up in Syria. He is currently married to an American citizen who is eight months pregnant.
When he was arrested, the DHS said that the thing was to protect the US national security by saying that Halil had “led activities along Hamas, the designated terrorist organization.”
Mahmoud Khalil spoke at an anti-Israel camp at the Columbia University campus in New York on April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, file)
Khalil's lawyer, Ramsi Kassem, said his client was “identified, detained and detained with targets” due to his advocacy against Palestinian rights and a protected speech. He said that although Halil has no criminal conviction, he is “in custody for some reason.”
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White House spokesman Caroline Leavitt defended the Trump administration's decision to arrest Khalil, saying he distributed pro-Hamas propaganda flyers on campus.
Michael Dorgan of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
