Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil says Trump administration has failed

Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil has said the Trump administration failed to suppress pro-Palestinian voices, following his release from more than three months in immigration detention.

“My existence is a message” to the Trump administration, he told the BBC after returning to New Jersey from a detention centre in Louisiana. “All these attempts to suppress Pro-Palestinian voices have failed now.”

Mr Khalil was a prominent voice in the New York university’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, and his 8 March arrest sparked demonstrations in New York and Washington DC.

The US government wants to deport him, arguing his activism is detrimental to foreign policy interests.