A sit-in at Trump Tower in Manhattan was underway Thursday as protesters gathered to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist detained over the weekend by federal immigration agents.
The organization Jewish Voice for Peace livestreamed the sit-in, showing hundreds of demonstrators packed into the building’s lobby.
Some held signs that read “Fight Nazis not students,” “Free Mahmoud free Palestine,” and “You can’t deport a movement.”
Many people could be heard chanting “Free Mahmoud.”
There was a heavy police presence in front of the building. About two to three dozen protesters could be seen, handcuffed in white zip ties, being escorted into police vehicles and empty city buses.
The protesters shouted, “Free Palestine” and “Free Mahmoud,” as they were being walked out of the building.
They were wearing red T-shirts that said, “Stop arming Israel” and “Not in our name.”
Some onlookers cheered for the arrestees and joined in their chants, while others seemed annoyed by the disruption to foot traffic along 5th Avenue.
Standing across the street, Nina Levene, a 60-year-old lifelong New Yorker whose mother is a holocaust survivor, sneered in disgust. She called the protests “anti-American.”
“When we take people into this country, they have to promise that they’re not anti our government and anti our democracy,” she said, adding that Khalil was “breaking every rule, so I’m all for it.”
“Jewish Voice for Peace demands the Trump administration release Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention. The detention of Mahmoud is further proof that we are on the brink of a full takeover by a repressive, authoritarian regime,” the group said in a statement.
Khalil, a 30-year-old Columbia University graduate and a green card holder, was arrested Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. His attorney, Amy Greer, said Khalil was told that his student visa was being revoked.
He is being held at a Louisiana immigration detention facility.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Khalil was detained in coordination with ICE and the State Department in support of President Donald Trump’s “executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism” The spokesperson said Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
Trump and his administration have not provided evidence of the allegations against him.
A person narrating the livestream of the protest said, “over 200 Jews and friends” had taken over Trump Tower.
“We’re saying when you come for one of us, you face us all,” the person said. [NBC News]
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