The Middle East Eye has revealed on Wednesday that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University masters grad who was detained by the Department of Homeland Security on Saturday night after his green car was revoked by the State Department, had security clearance from the British government. He worked, the outlet states, as a "programme manager at the Syria Office in the British embassy in Beirut from 2018 to 2022."
Khalil "worked as a local manager for the Syria Chevening Program, a prestigious UK government international scholarship scheme, as well as for the Conflict, Stability, and Security Fund," MEE states. Khalil came to the US in 2023, obtained a green card, and completed graduate studies at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in December 2024.
British diplomats had kind words for Khalil. Former diplomat Andrew Waller said that to gain his position in the UK's embassy in Beirut, he "went through a vetting process to get the job and was cleared to work on sensitive issues for the British government." Waller said that the UK program with which Khalil was affiliated is a "flagship UK soft power policy."
"It brings the brightest students from around the world to UK universities. Mahmoud ran its Syria programme and interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants on behalf of the British government," Waller said. Khalil also served as a "local staff political officer" and a translator both for language and context in meetings. Waller had nothing but kind words for Khalil, per MEE.
That vetting process held no weight with the Trump administration, which, acting on Trump's order to quell antisemitic protests on campus, has set about revoking visas and green cards of student activists who engaged in the chaos on college campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre.
Student activists on college campuses took up the side of the Hamas terrorists who perpetrated the pogrom which killed 1,200 people and kidnapped over 200, more than 50 of whom are still being held by terrorists in Gaza. It is believed that many of those Hamas is holding hostage are dead.
The Chevening scholarship, MEE reports, is a program of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and aims to "support UK foreign policy priorities and achieve FCDO objectives by creating lasting positive relationships with future leaders, influencers, and decision-makers."
Khalil was a leader and spokesperson for the violent demonstrations and occupations that took place on Columbia's campus. Students and activists occupied the quad, administration buildings, and as recently as January, disrupted classes to distribute anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian pamphlets. Last week, a Barnard College library was occupied and the NYPD was called in to clear the building.
Trump has called Khalil's detainment a "blueprint" for the removal of other students in the US on visas or green cards.
