Protests Continue Across City in the Wake of the Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil

A week of protests was capped by the arrest of 98 people inside Trump Tower on March 13 over the continuing detention of the pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who had led student protests at Columbia University last spring.

Most of the protesters wore red T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel.” Cops said about 150 people were inside initially, but some dispersed after warnings. At around 12:30 p.m. cops arrested 98 of them, zip-tied their hands, and loaded them onto buses for processing downtown. City Councilwoman Alexa Avilés was among the protesters, according to the Daily News. Generally, most elected Democratic officials have stayed away from protests that have erupted across the city.

A crowd also gathered outside as the protest was underway inside Trump Tower, at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street.

NYPD Chief of Department John Chell noted that while the Trump Tower lobby is open to the public “to a point,” once security says it is a problem, the NYPD gets involved. “We get permission from them [Trump building security]. We give warnings. As you know, some people left and some people stayed on the bottom floor and we made arrests.”

The lobby where the protesters were arrested is in the shadow of the golden elevator that Trump descended from in June 2015 to start his first Presidential campaign.

The protest is the latest in a series of protests across the city that have erupted following the arrest of Khalil. The largest so far came on March 10, when about 4,000 packed into Union Square a day after Khalil was arrested in his apartment by agents for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On March 11, Mayor Eric Adams, who is under fire for what many feel is too much cooperation with the Trump administration on the immigration crackdown, refused to condemn the raid that resulted in the arrest of Khalil.

Asked one questioner at a contentious weekly press briefing: “I wonder where you come down on the ICE arrest, whether you come down on the side of people who praise the First Amendment rights to protest in America, or those like President Trump who say foreigners in our country who spew hate speech should be deported. Your position?”

Adams declined to take a stand, saying immigration enforcement is up to the federal government.

“Well, first, I cannot say this clear enough. Federal government deals with immigration. That’s who deals with immigration. I’ve said it over and over again that free speech is important. And actually, this country advocates for that. But when it comes down to the determination of the status of who stays in the country and who doesn’t stay in the country, that’s the federal government.”

Adams continued that he would not cooperate with ICE on strictly civil matters but would work with them on criminal matters. “We made it clear we do not collaborate with civil enforcement, and we don’t. But I am going to collaborate every day with [law enforcement]. And the crimes that are committed won’t be on our streets. And ICE is a law enforcement entity. People fail to realize that. ICE is a law enforcement entity. And I’m going to collaborate with law enforcement, every federal, state, and city agency, in doing so. But specifically with this individual, that’s not my job.”

That prompted a small crowd to turn up at Gracie Mansion on the evening of March 11, as Adams was entertaining Muslim leaders celebrating Ramadan.

The protesters chanted the usual anti-Israel slogans, including the standard “Palestine must be free from the River to the Sea.” Critics of the protesters have pointed out the slogan is a de facto endorsement for the abolition of the state of Israel. On March 11, the protesters also called on Adams to resign.

The Trump administration wants Khalil booted on the grounds that he is a “national security risk” whom they accuse of spreading anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas propaganda during the student strikes at Columbia last year.

The Trump administration has also said it is cutting off $400 million in federal contracts from the university on the grounds that it failed to protect the rights of Jewish students during the campus protests.

Khalil was picked up by ICE agents in the New York apartment he shares with his pregnant wife and then flown 1,360 miles away to a detention center in Louisiana. Initially, the plan was to revoke his student visa, but it turned out Khalil already had a valid green card. The Trump administration is trying to revoke that on the national security issue. A federal judge has blocked the deportation.

Khalil’s supporters say that freedom of speech is under attack and that he could be the first of many to face persecution. Meanwhile, Khalil and seven other Columbia students filed suit against the school for turning over disciplinary records to Congress.

“There’s a groundwork that’s been laid over the past year,” said Gadeir Abbas, an attorney at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, at a press conference on March 13. “They’ve been gathering disciplinary records from all across the country and so the ingredients are in place for a real, unprecedented campaign. Or, if there is a precedent, you’d have the McCarthy hearings of the ’50s.”