Leqaa Kordia, who is a Palestinian and from the West Bank, was arrested in New Jersey, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement on Friday.

The statement said another student, Ranjani Srinivasani, who has Indian citizenship, chose to “self-deport” by leaving the US earlier this week.

This follows the arrest of Columbia campus activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained on Saturday in New York before being flown to a jail in Louisiana.

The DHS statement says that Ms Kordia had overstayed her student visa, which had been terminated in 2022 “for lack of attendance”. It did not say whether she had been attending Columbia or another institution.

She had previously been arrested in April 2024 for taking part in protests at Columbia University, according to DHS.

Ms Srinivasan, a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University, had her visa revoked on 5 March.

“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement.

“When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.”

Ms Srinivasan’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem told the Wall Street Journal that the government’s statement was “full of the falsehoods we’ve come to expect of DHS”.

Mr Kassem told the paper the government “violated basic rights” by revoking a visa “simply for engaging in protected political speech”.

The BBC contacted a lawyer for Ms Srinivasan for comment on Friday evening.

Contact details for Mr Kodia’s lawyer were not Immediately available.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly alleged that pro-Palestinian activists, including Mr Khalil, support Hamas, a group designated a terrorist organisation by the US.

The president argues these protesters should be deported.

Mr Khalil, 30, is a Syrian-born Columbia graduate and US green card holder.

His case has raised questions about free speech on college campuses and the legal process that would allow for the deportation of a US permanent resident.

His lawyers say he was exercising free speech rights to demonstrate in support of Palestinians in Gaza and against US support for Israel.

Mr Khalil’s lawyers deny that he supports Hamas.

Additionally, on Thursday night DHS agents executed two search warrants in rooms on the Columbia campus.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche of the US justice department said the agents were searching for evidence that the university was “harboring and concealing illegal aliens on its campus”.

“That investigation is ongoing, and we are also looking at whether Columbia’s handling of earlier incidents violated civil rights laws and included terrorism crimes,” he said.

Columbia Interim President Katrina Armstrong said in a letter to the campus that she was “heartbroken” to inform them of the federal raid.

“No one was arrested or detained. No items were removed, and no further action was taken,” she said.

The Trump administration has also pulled $400m (£310m) of federal funding from Columbia University, saying it failed to fight antisemitism on campus.

Mr Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and permanent US resident, played a key role in last year’s Gaza war protests at the Ivy League campus in New York City.

The arrest is part of President Donald Trump’s pledge to crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses, in what he called “the first arrest of many to come”.

Protesters gathered in New York City on Monday afternoon pushing for Mr Khalil’s release and condemning the Trump administration’s actions.

A crowd waving Palestinian flags gathered in Lower Manhattan’s Foley Square soon after it was reported that the US had attempted to deport Khalil. The protesters later marched further south toward city hall. At least one person was detained.

“We’re facing a horrifying reality that our own student, a member of the Columbia community, has become a political prisoner here in the United States,” Columbia University Professor Michael Thaddeus said in a statement.

The judge set a hearing for Wednesday where Mr Khalil is expected to make an appearance, according to court documents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents informed Mr Khalil they were revoking his student visa and green card upon taking him into custody on Saturday, his lawyer said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused the former student of “leading activities aligned to Hamas” but provided no details. The BBC has asked the agency for further information on the allegations.

Trump has previously stated that foreign students found to be “terrorist sympathisers” would face deportation. Mr Khalil is the first known detainee under this policy.

His lawyer, Amy Greer, condemned his detention as “terrible and inexcusable”, calling it part of “the US government’s open repression of student activism and political speech”.

Mr Khalil, a Palestinian refugee who was born in Syria, has not been charged with any crime.

ICE agents detained him at his university-owned Manhattan apartment and initially placed him in a New Jersey immigration facility before transferring him to a detention centre in Jena, Louisiana, according to ICE records.

His attorney claims ICE also threatened to arrest his wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant. When she attempted to visit him in New Jersey, officials told her he was not there.

Columbia University stated that law enforcement can enter campus property with a warrant but denied that university leadership had invited ICE agents.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed the administration’s stance, posting on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.

The Trump administration announced last week it was rescinding $400m (£310m) in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

Columbia was the epicentre last year of pro-Palestinian student protests nationwide against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

Mr Khalil was lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest when its protesters set up a huge tent encampment on the university lawn in protest against the Gaza war.

He later told the BBC he had been temporarily suspended by the university, where he was a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

New York Civil Liberties Union President Donna Lieberman called his deportation “targeted retaliation and an extreme attack on the First Amendment.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James said she was “extremely concerned” and monitoring the case.

Some Jewish students at Columbia said that the protest rhetoric had at times crossed the line into antisemitism last year. School officials raised this and other safety concerns when they announced that classes would be fully remote until the end of the 2024 spring semester.

But many contested the accusations of antisemitism, and Jewish students also joined the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Carly, a Jewish-American graduate student at Columbia and a friend of Mr Khalil, rejected the characterisation. She told the BBC that the detainee was a “very, very caring soul”.

“He has been very targeted online and just seeing how he has been so misrepresented, it’s very painful, as someone who knows him on a personal level,” said Carly, who declined to share her surname for privacy reasons.

Speaking on Fox News, Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan alleged that Mr Khalil had violated the terms of his visa by “locking down buildings and destroying property”.

The Israeli military launched its campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack into Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage.

More than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.