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Trump Admin Demands on Columbia University Mount as Agents Search Dorm Rooms
Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The Trump administration has told Columbia University that it must make a series of policy changes as a precondition for talks on restoring $400 million in canceled federal contracts and grants, ratcheting up its crackdown on the school and others where anti-Israel protests flourished last year.
The demands, made in a letter dated on Thursday, coincided with a search of two student dormitory rooms by federal agents at the New York City campus, its interim president said. The searches came a week after immigration agents detained Mahmoud Khalil, the leader of last year’s protests at Columbia, in a bid to deport him that so far has been blocked in court.
The developments are the latest signals that the Trump administration has no plans to ease up on efforts to reshape the policies on how US college campuses deal with disruptive protests.
Earlier this week, the Department of Education said it was investigating 60 colleges and universities for allegedly tolerating antisemitic harassment and a hostile environment for Jews. In a related move, it on Friday said it was investigating 45 universities after complaints that the schools engaged with a program designed to increase diversity that set eligibility based on race. It said such activities violated a 1964 civil rights law.
Columbia has emerged as a prime target of the administration, which has accused it of an inadequate response to alleged antisemitism on campus during last year’s weeks-long encampment by activists and a brief occupation of a campus building.
The university has said it has worked to combat antisemitism and other prejudice. At the same time, it has fended off accusations by civil rights groups that it is letting the government erode academia’s free speech protections.
Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong said in a statement on Thursday that agents from the Department of Homeland Security served the university with two warrants signed by a federal magistrate, allowing them to enter and search the student residences. No one was arrested or detained, no items were removed, and no further action was taken, she said.
Even before Khalil’s arrest, students say federal immigration agents had been repeatedly spotted at dorms and student housing around Columbia’s Manhattan campus.
Over the last week, Columbia staff and law students have sent emails and group messages to alert people on campus to the sightings, saying the agents are in plainclothes, and reminding students of their rights.
The campus demonstrations began after an October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Israel, and the subsequent US-supported Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that Hamas controls. Protesters demanded that university endowments divest from Israeli interests and that the US end military assistance to Israel.
In Thursday’s letter, the Trump administration ordered Columbia to formally define antisemitism, ban the wearing of masks “intended to conceal identity or intimidate,” and to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies departments under “academic receivership,” which would take control out of the hands of their faculties.
A Columbia spokeswoman told the New York Times that the school was reviewing the letter. Reuters could not immediately reach a Columbia representative for comment.
Earlier on Thursday, the school announced that it had meted out a range of punishments – including suspensions, expulsions, and the revocation of degrees – to students who occupied a campus building last spring during the anti-Israel protests. It did not name the students or say how many were disciplined.
The discipline, which followed a months-long investigation, was announced ahead of a Thursday night court filing in which Khalil’s lawyers said the Trump administration’s stated policy of deporting foreign nationals who participate in pro-Hamas protests is unconstitutional. It urged US District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan to immediately release him from immigration detention.
Khalil’s deportation was temporarily blocked by a federal judge, and the student leader, who has not been charged with any crime, is being held in a federal facility in Louisiana.
Earlier this week, Justice Department lawyers representing the government said Khalil, 30, was subject to deportation because Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that his presence or activities in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The government did not elaborate in court papers on how Khalil could harm US foreign policy. Trump, without evidence, has accused him of supporting Hamas, and Rubio told reporters earlier this week that noncitizen protesters who disrupt campus life should have their visas revoked.
The post Trump Admin Demands on Columbia University Mount as Agents Search Dorm Rooms first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel’s Supreme Court Orders Improved Food for Security Prisoners
Israel’s Supreme Court. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday instructed the Prison Service (Shabas) to guarantee adequate food supplies for security prisoners, ruling that current conditions fall short of minimum legal standards. The decision followed an appeal filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
In a 2–1 ruling, the court found that the food situation posed “a risk of non-compliance with legal standards.” Justice Dafna Barak-Erez stressed that the matter concerned “basic conditions necessary for survival, as required by law,” not comfort or privilege. Justice Ofer Grosskopf agreed, noting the state had not shown the policy was consistently applied to all inmates.
Justice David Mintz dissented, maintaining that the existing policy already met legal requirements.
The court underscored that Israel’s legal obligations remain binding, even in light of the ongoing hostage crisis in Gaza and the fact that many of the prisoners include Hamas members involved in the October 7, 2023 attack.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir condemned the ruling, arguing that while hostages in Gaza lack protection, “terrorist murderers, kidnappers, and rapists in prison” benefit from the Court’s intervention. He added that prisoners would continue receiving only the minimum conditions required by law.
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Ukrainian Government Building Set Ablaze in Record Russian Airstrike
Illustrative. More damage caused by the Russian drone that hit the Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov
i24 News – The Ukrainian government’s main building in Kyiv was hit overnight Saturday by Russian airstrikes for the first time since the war, igniting a fire in the building, authorities said. Firefighters are working to put out the flames.
“The government building was damaged by an enemy attack — the roof and upper floors,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko said. The blaze is is burning in the area of the office of the prime minister.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched a total of 805 drones and 13 missiles overnight on Ukraine — a record number since the start of the war.
Also as a result of the strike, a baby and a young woman were killed after a nine-story residential building was hit in the Svyatoshynsky district, also in Kyiv. Rescuers are still looking for a third body, authorities said. A woman was also reported killed in the strike in Novopavlivka village.
“The world must respond to this destruction not only with words, but also with actions. We need to increase sanctions pressure – primarily against Russian oil and gas. We need new restrictions that will hit the Kremlin’s military machine. And most importantly, Ukraine needs weapons. Something that will stop the terror and prevent Russia from trying to kill Ukrainians every day,” wrote Sviridenko after the attack.
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‘Trump’s Legacy Crumbles’: Israelis Call on US President to End Gaza War
Israeli protestors take part in a rally demanding the immediate release of the hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, and the end of war in Gaza, in Jerusalem September 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, issuing direct appeals to US President Donald Trump to force an end to the Gaza war and secure the release of the hostages.
Protesters packed a public square outside the military headquarters, waving Israeli flags and holding placards with images of the hostages. Some carried signs, including one that read: ‘Trump’s legacy crumbles as the Gaza war persists.’
Another said: “PRESIDENT TRUMP, SAVE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”
“We think that Trump is the only man in the world who has authority over Bibi, that can force Bibi to do this,” said Tel Aviv resident Boaz, 40, referring to the Israeli prime minister.
There is growing despair among many Israelis at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has ordered the military to capture a major urban center where hostages may be held.
Families of the hostages and their supporters fear the assault on Gaza City could endanger their loved ones, a concern the military leadership shares, according to Israeli officials.
Orna Neutra, the mother of an Israeli soldier who was killed on October 7, 2023 and whose body is being held in Gaza by militants, accused the government of abandoning its citizens.
“We truly hope that the United States will push both sides to finally reach a comprehensive deal that will bring them home,” she told the rally. Her son, Omer, is also American.
Tel Aviv has witnessed weekly demonstrations that have grown in size, with protesters demanding that the government secure a ceasefire with Hamas to obtain the release of hostages. Organizers said Saturday night’s rally was attended by tens of thousands. A large demonstration was also held in Jerusalem.
There are 48 hostages held in Gaza. Israeli officials believe that around 20 are still alive. Palestinian terrorists abducted 251 people from Israel on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led its attack. Most of the hostages who have been released were freed after indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
NO PURPOSE
Trump had pledged a swift end to the war in Gaza during his presidential campaign, but nearly eight months into his second term, a resolution has remained elusive. On Friday, he said that Washington was engaged in “very deep” negotiations with Hamas.
Israeli forces have carried out heavy strikes on the suburbs of Gaza City, where, according to a global hunger monitor, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are facing famine. Israeli officials acknowledge that hunger exists in Gaza but deny that the territory is facing famine. On Saturday, the military warned civilians in Gaza City to leave and move to southern Gaza.
There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering in the city that was home to around a million before the war.
A video released by Hamas on Friday featured Israeli hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal, 24, saying that he was being held in Gaza City and feared being killed by the military’s assault on the city. Rights groups have condemned such videos of hostages as inhumane. Israel says that it is psychological warfare.
The war has become unpopular among some segments of Israeli society, and opinion polls show that most Israelis want Netanyahu’s right-wing government to negotiate a permanent ceasefire with Hamas that secures the release of the hostages.
“The war has no purpose at all, except for violence and death,” said Boaz from Tel Aviv. Adam, 48, said it had become obvious that soldiers were being sent to war for “nothing.”
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since it launched its retaliatory war after Hamas fighters attacked Israel from Gaza in October 2023. Around 1,200 people were killed in that attack on southern Israel.
The terrorist group, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but today controls only parts of the enclave, on Saturday once again said that it would release all hostages if Israel agreed to end the war and withdraw its forces from Gaza.
Netanyahu is pushing for an all-or-nothing deal that would see all of the hostages released at once and Hamas surrendering.
The prime minister has said Gaza City is a Hamas stronghold and capturing it is necessary to defeat the Palestinian militant group, whose October 2023 attack on Israel led to the war.
Hamas has acknowledged it would no longer govern Gaza once the war ends but has refused to discuss laying down its weapons.