On Thursday, hundreds of demonstrators poured into the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City to protest against the Trump administration’s arrest and attempted deportation of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who is currently being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The action was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and featured around 300 pro-Palestine protesters holding a sit-in on the main floor of Trump Tower, demanding that Khalil be immediately released. Many could be heard chanting “Free Mahmoud” and “Free Palestine.”
The protesters — who gathered near the very same escalator Trump descended in 2015 to announce his first presidential run — also held signs that read, “You Can’t Deport a Movement,” “Fight Nazis, Not Students” and “Jews for Palestinian Freedom.” Many participants wore red shirts that read “Not In Our Name.”
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who helped organize last year’s student encampments against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, was detained last Saturday at his university-owned apartment. After presenting his green card to ICE agents, he was abducted and transported to a facility in New Jersey, and then transferred to Louisiana.
Lawyers for Khalil have filed a habeas corpus petition against his detention and the administration’s attempt to deport him. A federal judge has blocked any deportation action until arguments are heard from both sides.
The White House has said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has the power, under a little-known law, to revoke Khalil’s green card status if it is determined that his “presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” But the administration has failed to demonstrate that this is the case, despite Trump baselessly claiming in social media posts that Khalil engaged in “pro-terrorist” and antisemitic actions during demonstrations he led at Columbia.
Trump has also said that Khalil’s is the “first arrest of many to come.”
Legal experts have condemned the administration’s action.
“The government would need to prove that he’s done something more than just speaking out, like offering material support to Hamas. That would be a ground of deportability. They can’t deport only for free speech advocacy,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired immigration law professor at Cornell Law School, speaking to Time about Khalil’s detention.
During the Jewish Voice for Peace demonstration on Thursday, several onlookers reportedly joined in the chants and shouted in support of the protesters. Others expressed their opposition to the protest, according to reporting from NBC News.
“Under the guise of fighting antisemitism, the Trump regime is using attacks on the movement for Palestinian freedom as an opening to dismantle civil liberties and the entire progressive movement,” Jewish Voice for Peace said in a social media post. “This is how fascism works. We refuse to be divided or silenced.”
Police arrested around 100 protesters in Trump Tower’s lobby, the organization announced. Several participants in the demonstration also spoke out afterward.
“The Trump administration’s outrageous detention of Mahmoud Khalil is designed to sow terror and stop people of conscience from calling for Palestinian freedom,” said Ros Petchesky, an 82-year-old Jewish New Yorker, a MacArthur Fellow, and an alumna of Columbia University. “We are Jewish New Yorkers and we remain steadfast in our commitment to Palestinian freedom, to protecting free speech and the right to protest, and to defending immigrants and all under attack by the Trump regime.”
“Trump’s assault on free speech and civil society endangers Jewish people and all people committed to a democratic society. The only way forward is to build a united force against the ascendant far-Right. It will take all of us,” said Tal Frieden, a Jewish New Yorker and descendant of Holocaust survivors.
“The blatantly unconstitutional detention of Mahmoud Khalil is another step in the far right’s plan to target all who oppose their authoritarian agenda,” the organization said in a press release. “All of these actions are also in service of sharpening the tools that the administration will then use to fully dismantle social justice movements, higher education, and civil liberties.”
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