At least 98 people were arrested on Thursday during a demonstration against the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist detained for his involvement with pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University. The protest, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, began shortly after noon inside Trump Tower in Manhattan.
About 200 activists and supporters of the Judeo-American organization that supports the Palestinian cause gathered inside the building, denouncing what they call the repression of freedom of expression.
The group was wearing red t -shirts with words like “not in our name”, written in white letters, in reference to the Make America Great Again movement popularized by Trump. Protesters raised tracks and shouted hostile slogans to the current US president.
“Fight against the Nazis, not against the students,” they shouted before some were arrested, reported journalists from AFP.
Mahmoud Khalil, Palestinian and graduate student at the School of International and Public Relations, acted as a spokesman for a student of Columbia University against the Israel War in Gaza. He was arrested by agents from the internal security department at his university residence on Saturday night, 8.
“Freedom for Mahmoud, freedom for Palestine,” said a poster, referring to the detention waiting for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, who has a permanent residence Green Card in the United States.
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“I am here to inspire myself in the hundreds of New York Jews who are manifesting to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, and that our Judaism is not used as a weapon to violate the rights of Americans and destroy democracy,” explained James Schamus, who describes himself as a “Jewish teacher” at Columbia University. For him, Donald Trump’s struggle against anti -Semitism is a “smoke curtain.”
The idea that “criticizing Israel is anti -Semitic, and that someone can be kidnapped on our streets and expelled from the country to express political opinions about this conflict abroad, should cause horror chills in the spine,” he added. New York police did not confirm arrests during the demonstration.
For several days, President Trump has been attacking universities and, in the name of combating anti -Semitism, promising retaliatory budgetary measures against institutions that do not fight anti -Semitism. Its administration has already cut US $ 400 million in subsidies and contracts for Columbia.
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He also threatens to deport foreigners who participate in the protests. He promised that the lawsuit against Mahmoud Khalil would be followed by “many others.”
The Trump government is trying to deport Palestinian immigrant with American citizenship who helped lead protests at Columbia University against Israel’s military offensive against the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.
Mahmoud Khalil, 30, who graduated in December in Columbia with a master’s degree in public policy, was arrested by immigration officers in New York on Saturday and sent to a detention center in Louisiana. He has a Green Card and is married to an American citizen who is eight months pregnant. Trump said Khalil’s case was “the first prison of many to come.”
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“We know that there are more students from Columbia and other universities across the country who have been involved in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic and anti-American activities, and the Trump government won’t tolerate it,” Trump said on social networks.
“If you support terrorism, including the massacre of innocent men, women and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We hope that all United States colleges and universities will fulfill this determination, ”he added.
Khalil’s arrest and attempted expulsion for immigration and customs service has led to criticism of the government and opened a debate on the rights of freedom of expression and the growing trump government to immigration and the universities that the president and his advisers claim to be very left.
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The government did not publicly present the legal authority for prison. But two people with knowledge of the subject said that Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was based on a clause of the law of immigration and nationality that gives him ample power to expel foreigners.
The disposition says that any “foreigner whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable reasons to believe that he would have potentially serious adverse consequences for US foreign policy is subject to deportation.”
Rubio also republished a statement from the internal security department that accused Khalil of “led activities aligned with Hamas.” But authorities did not accuse him of having any contact with the terrorist group, receiving his guidance or providing material support to him.
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Instead, the justification is that the anti-Israel protests that Khalil helped lead were anti-Semites and promoted a hostile environment for Jewish students in Columbia.
While studying in Columbia, Khalil was leader of the campus protests that broke out after Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250. The Israeli military who killed about 50,000 Palestinians.
Pro-Palestinian protests and a student camp in Columbia-as well as the university’s administration response, which included asking police to remove protesters-became a controversial theme in the US.
