'Safer without him': Columbia student claims classmate arrested by ICE 'hates America'

He was arrested by ICE on March 8 and is currently being kept at a detention facility in Louisiana.

Khalil's former classmate said that although his appearance is normal, his rhetoric left her and other Jewish students feeling extremely threatened. She filed two Title VI complaints with the Columbia administration, but the university never took any action against him.

"It would almost be easier if he were some terrifying looking man who threatened to punch people in the face, but he wasn't," she said. "He was very soft-spoken and careful with his words, which almost made him seem more insidious, because it was so intentional - he was never being hyperbolic, he was very clear. He was never joking."

Since his arrest, the student said she has "felt safer on campus."

"I really do think this country is probably safer without him here, like I don't know how he got a green card," she said. 

"He seems very much like he hates America and everything it stands for," she added. "I think he's done a lot to cause harm and violence here, and I could see him doing more."

"Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it."

"We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country - never to return again," he added. "If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here."

Columbia University declined Fox News Digital's request for comment, saying, "we're not going to comment on individual students."  

The Justice Department is also investigating whether the university intentionally hid students who are in the country illegally. Columbia interim President Katrina Armstrong issued a statement on Saturday saying that the university "will stand by its values," but did not directly respond to the DOJ investigation.