NEW YORK: Demonstrators from a Jewish group filled the lobby of Trump Tower on Thursday to denounce the immigration arrest of a Columbia University activist who helped lead student protests on the Manhattan campus against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Jewish Voice for Peace protesters, who carried banners and wore red shirts reading “Jews say stop arming Israel,” chanted “Bring Mahmoud home now!“
After warning the protesters to leave the Fifth Avenue building or face arrest, police began putting them in zip ties and loading them into police vans outside about an hour after the demonstration began.
Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident who is married to an American citizen and who hasn’t been charged with breaking any laws, was arrested outside his New York City apartment on Saturday and faces deportation. President Donald Trump has said Khalil’s arrest was the first “of many to come” and vowed on social media to deport students who he said engage in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
Police, who were staged inside and outside the Fifth Avenue building ahead of the demonstration, began arresting protesters after warning them to leave.
Among the protesters was actor Debra Winger, who has discussed her Jewish faith and upbringing over the years.
Winger accused the Trump administration of having “no interest in Jewish safety” and “co-opting antisemitism.”
“I’m just standing up for my rights, and I’m standing up for Mahmoud Khalil, who has been abducted illegally and taken to an undisclosed location,” she told The Associated Press. “Does that sound like America to you?”
Khalil’s supporters say his arrest is an attack on free speech and have staged protests elsewhere in the city and around the country. Hundreds demonstrated Wednesday outside a Manhattan courthouse during a brief hearing on his case.
Trump Tower serves as headquarters for the Trump Organization and is where the president stays when he is in New York. The skyscraper often attracts demonstrations, both against and in support of its namesake, though protests inside are less common. The building’s main entrance opens to a multi-story atrium that is open to the public and connects visitors to stores and eateries such as the Trump Grill.
Khalil, 30, was being detained at an immigration detention center in Louisiana, where he has remained after a brief stop at a New Jersey lockup.
Columbia was a focal point of the pro-Palestinian protest movement that swept across US college campuses last year and led to more than 2,000 arrests.
Khalil, whose wife is pregnant with their first child, finished his requirements for a Columbia master’s degree in December. Born in Syria, he is a grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a legal filing.