The Columbia graduate student was supposed to attend this graduation celebration. Instead Khalil is in immigration detention, caught up in Trump’s crackdown on foreign students.

NEW YORK–Columbia University’s acting president defended higher education and acknowledged the absence of Mahmoud Khalil during the school’s commencement ceremony, as pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested outside the school’s main gates.

NEW YORK (AP) — The head of Columbia University gave a commencement speech Wednesday acknowledging the absence of student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was due to receive his diploma this week but is instead in a Louisiana jail facing deportation for his role in pro-Palestinian campus protests.