US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sparked widespread condemnations after saying that the US will be revoking the visas and green cards of pro-Palestinian activists so they can be deported.

He made the remarks in an X post on Monday, two days after federal immigration authorities detained Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who played a major role in last year’s student encampment movement at New York’s Columbia University in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip amid a genocidal Israeli war.

In X, analysts denounced the planned deportation of people due to their political views as a violation of the US Constitution and the First Amendment.

They emphasized that the kidnapping and deporting of activists is an act of authoritarianism and an attack on free speech.

Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until this past December, was inside his university-owned apartment in Manhattan when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took him into custody.

Khalil’s lawyer Amy Greer said the authorities declined to tell his wife, who is American and eight months pregnant, why he was being detained.

Greer also noted that Khalil was a green card holder, vowing that his arrest would face a vigorous legal challenge.

The arrest, she added, “follows the US government’s open repression of student activism and political speech.”

Khalil was detained just days after US President Donald Trump threatened to prosecute and deport foreign students who were involved in what he called “illegal protests” on campus.

The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Khalil’s arrest was “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism,” claiming that he “led activities aligned to Hamas” resistance movement.

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