Demonstrators from a Jewish group crammed the foyer of Trump Tower in New York Metropolis on Thursday in protest of the arrest of Colombia College graduate Mahmoud Khalil.
In movies circulating social media, a sea of purple shirts captured protestors from Jewish Voice for Peace chanting “Free Mahmoud.”
“Fight Nazis, not students,” one signal learn, as one other protester carried an indication studying “Jews for Palestinian freedom.” Additionally they wore shirts studying “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel” and “Not in Our Name.”
Quickly after, the New York Metropolis Police Division arrested 98 folks. The protestors have been typically zip-tied and led out of the foyer and onto police autos.
New York Law enforcement officials arrest a demonstrator who protested within the Trump Tower foyer on March 13, 2025, in New York Metropolis.
Khalil, a everlasting authorized resident who’s married to a U.S. citizen and anticipating a toddler, was arrested Saturday for his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. He now faces potential deportation, although a choose has stopped him from being deported whereas the court docket weighs the legality of his arrest.
President Donald Trump has painted Khalil as a terrorist sympathizer and has promised that there are “many” extra arrests to come back.
In a Tuesday briefing, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt supported these claims, saying the graduate scholar helped manage protests that “harassed Jewish-American students” whereas additionally distributing “pro-Hamas propaganda.”
Khalil is being held within the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Middle in Jena, Louisiana, the place he’ll stay following a procedural listening to in New York. The for-profit detention facility has a observe report of sexual assault and abuse towards its inmates.
In a Tuesday press convention hosted by ReThink Media, Abed Ayoub, nationwide government director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, defined that Khalil’s relocation was an intentional transfer to make it harder for attorneys to work with him.
“They are usually taken to remote areas where it is hard to get an attorney,” Ayoub mentioned.
Mahmoud Khalil
Chatting with CNN, Ramzi Kassem, an lawyer for Khalil, mentioned Wednesday, “We actually haven’t been capable of check with our consumer as soon as since he was taken off the streets of New York Metropolis.”
Persevering with exterior of the courthouse following Khalil’s procedural listening to, Kassem added, “He was taken by US authorities brokers in retaliation, basically, for exercising his First Modification rights, for talking up in protection of Palestinians in Gaza and past, for being crucial of the US authorities and of the Israeli authorities.”
Nevertheless, a choose ordered Wednesday that Khalil’s attorneys be allowed a Wednesday and Thursday cellphone name with Khalil as they put together to satisfy deadlines.
Thursday’s protests exterior of Trump Tower come a day after the president made controversial remarks about Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer.
Seemingly unprovoked, Trump mentioned to reporters, “Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned. You know, he’s become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore. He’s a Palestinian.”
It’s unclear why the president selected this subject, however Trump is extraordinarily clear on the place he lies relating to the Israel-Hamas warfare’s impact on the Gaza Strip.
However because the world appears towards Khalil’s case, many different asylum-seekers, visa holders, and everlasting residents who’ve non secular views or come from sure international locations are involved about their future.
Not lengthy after taking workplace this 12 months, Trump signed an government order that mimicked his first time period’s journey ban. Many expect the ban to take impact within the coming days.
This time, nevertheless, the ban isn’t simply anticipated to focus on simply Muslim-majority international locations. The chief order additionally gave energy to revoke visas and everlasting residency of those that maintain ideological views that the White Home could disapprove of.
Unrest and anger on the Trump administration have been rising, resulting in protests throughout the nation for a lot of causes, together with these pissed off over large federal layoffs, co-President Elon Musk, mass deportations, and extra.
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