The Trump administration is seeking to deport a Columbia student because his activities could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process, according to a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The student, Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, is a legal permanent resident who has spent a decade in the United States. Until this week, he had been in hiding, for fear that the administration would seek to deport him after he led pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. But on Monday he showed up at an immigration services center in Vermont, expecting to take the test that would allow him to become a naturalized citizen.

Instead, he was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents, who relied on Rubio’s memo as the justification for the arrest. Rubio cited the same law that has been used to justify the detention of Mahdawi’s fellow Columbia protester, Mahmoud Khalil.

The law, which Khalil’s lawyers have challenged in federal court, allows Rubio to initiate deportation proceedings against anyone whose presence in the United States can reasonably be considered to hurt American foreign policy goals.

Last week, an immigration judge found that Rubio’s memo alone allowed the Trump administration to meet the burden of proof necessary for deporting Khalil, whom the secretary accused of undermining the fight against antisemitism. The judge’s decision affirmed, for the time being, Rubio’s power to pick and choose which noncitizens — even those with legal residency — can be deported.

Evidence submitted by the Department of Homeland Security and reviewed by the Times did not include any allegations of antisemitism against Khalil himself, apart from the flat declaration in Rubio’s memo.

Khalil’s detention created an uproar, and his lawyers had already begun to mount constitutional challenges on behalf of their client by March 15, when Rubio’s memo concerning Mahdawi was issued.

Like Khalil, Mahdawi stands accused of undermining the U.S. foreign policy goal of halting antisemitism. But Rubio’s memo concerning Mahdawi is different in several respects and more specific.

The memo asserted, without elaboration, that protests of the type Mahdawi had led could undermine the Middle East peace process by reinforcing antisemitic sentiment in the region and around the world and ultimately threatening a U.S. foreign policy goal of resolving the conflict in the Gaza Strip “peacefully.”

It also said, without elaborating, that Mahdawi had “engaged in threatening rhetoric and intimidation of pro-Israeli bystanders” and that his actions had undermined efforts to protect Jewish students from violence.

A lawyer for Mahdawi, Luna Droubi, asked to comment on the assertions in the memo, said that they were “baseless claims made with no evidence.”

“Mohsen in fact took the lead on bringing Palestinian and Israeli students together in pursuit of a just peace on campus and in the Middle East,” she said. “Mohsen, like every other person in this country, is entitled to due process and protections under the First Amendment.”