Protesters from a Jewish organizing group occupied the ground floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday over the immigration arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student and activist at Columbia University.
In the lobby of Trump Tower, about 300 people donning red shirts reading “Not in My Name,” chanted and held banners in support of Khalil, said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, a spokesperson for Jewish Voice for Peace, an organizing group critical of Israel and U.S. policies toward the Palestinian territories. Over the weekend, federal immigration agents detained Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent U.S. resident, as officials said they revoked his status in the country.
Born in Syria and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp, Khalil attended Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and completed his program in December, his attorneys said. He is now in a detention facility in Louisiana as protests against his arrest unfolded around New York City, including a demonstration outside the Manhattan federal courthouse Wednesday during a hearing.
Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning. Organizers protested in the lobby for about an hour Thursday morning. Police began removing people in zip ties, Meyerson-Knox said. Police arrested 98 people, according to John Chell, a senior New York Police Department official.
Columbia punishes students who occupied building in 2024
Khalil was a lead negotiator in divisive Columbia student encampment protests last spring that launched similar and latest demonstrations on college campuses nationwide. Columbia demonstrators pushed for the university to cut ties with Israel amid the war, including with financial investments and student exchange programs.
On Thursday, Columbia said it had doled out a range of punishments to a group of students who occupied a campus building last spring during pro-Palestinian protests. The university requested New York City police enter the campus to clear the building and encampment. Authorities arrested dozens of people, though Manhattan prosecutors dropped charges for most last June.
The announcement came a week after President Donald Trump’s administration announced that it had canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts in response to what it said was the Ivy League school’s poor response to antisemitism on campus.
Columbia University’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, has called the administration’s concerns legitimate and said her institution was working with the government to address them. Campus protests and pro-Israel counter-protests have drawn allegations of antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism.
The university said in a statement that its “judicial board determined findings and issued sanctions to students ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall last spring.”
The university did not release the names of students disciplined, nor did it say how many students faced punishments.
One of the students expelled was Grant Miner, the president of Columbia’s student workers union and a Ph.D. student in the English and comparative literature department, a United Auto Workers news release said Thursday night. Miner was expelled a day before contract negotiations would begin with the university on Friday.
“The shocking move is part of a wave of crackdowns on free speech against students and workers who have spoken out and protested for peace and against the war on Gaza,” a union statement said.
‘Violation of our Constitution’
Neither the Trump Organization nor the White House responded to email requests for comment.
“As Jews, as people of conscience, we know our history,” Meyerson-Knox told USA TODAY in a phone interview from the building’s lobby. “We know where this leads,” she said.
Meyerson-Knox characterized Khalil’s arrest as a “violation of our Constitution.”
Jewish Voice for Peace has held several protests, which have led to mass arrests as an act of civil disobedience, against Israel’s devastating siege in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas militants in southern Israel, which killed over 1,200 people and took hundreds of people hostage. Israel’s offensive in response has killed at least 48,000.
Video captured by organizers showed activists holding signs saying “Come for One, Face Us All” and “Never Again for Anyone.” Signs were also draped over balconies near the iconic golden escalator where President Donald Trump descended in 2015 to launch his presidential campaign.
Secretary of State Rubio: ‘No one has a right to a student visa’
Outside Trump Tower, police ushered protesters in zip ties into city and police buses along Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan.
Trump promised a crackdown on the demonstrations by deporting people on visas who took part in the demonstrations. The president has said Khalil is the first arrest of more to come for pro-Palestinian activists, alleging their actions were antisemitic and supported Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.
Federal immigration agents detained Khalil on Saturday night at his university-owned apartment while returning home with his wife, an American citizen who is 8 months pregnant. Officials have not charged Khalil with a crime.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has used his authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to argue Khalil’s “presence or activities” in the U.S. have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” according to a Department of Homeland Security removal document for Khalil.
On Wednesday, Rubio argued Khalil’s case is not about free speech.
“This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” Rubio told reporters. “No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.”
At Trump Tower, Meyerson-Knox said the demonstration was to stand up for constitutional rights around free speech and protest.
“We all have to speak up today, otherwise we will not be able to speak up tomorrow,” she said.
