Hundreds of people broke into Trump Tower’s lobby in New York on Thursday (13) to protest against the arrest and detention of Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, that the Trump administration intends to deport its pro-Palestine activism.
Khalil’s arrest, who is in immigration in Louisiana immigration after his arrest in New York on Saturday (8), generated an outraged reaction of Democratic legislators, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for busy Palestinians and defenders of civil liberties, among others.
Jewish Voice for Peace, who describes himself as an anti-joint progressive Jewish organization, organized Thursday’s demonstration. The group said it was “taking Trump Tower to record our mass rejection.”
“We are not going to get arms crossed while this government tries to criminalize the Palestinians and all those who ask for the end of the US -funded genocide against the Palestinian people perpetrated by the Israeli government,” the group said in an X post.
At least 150 protesters gathered at Trump Tower, estimated the New York Police Department (NYPD). Images on social networks showed the protesters holding posters asking for the release of Mahmoud Khalil and the release of Palestine.
Videos showed the police holding some of the protesters. New York police could not confirm how many arrests were made.
Kaz Daughtry, deputy mayor for public security, told Fox News that there were no injuries and that all protesters had been removed from the building.
Trump Organization, whose headquarters is in the golden skyscraper on Quinta Avenida de Manhattan, has not provided an immediate comment.
“First arrest of many to come”
By arresting Khalil on Saturday, the Trump administration began to fulfill its campaign promise to deport foreign activists who participated in the wave of protests on US university campuses last year. The protests followed Israel’s military attack on Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Hamas Militant Group, which controls Palestinian territory.
Khalil, a permanent legal resident in the United States, has been a prominent figure in Columbia’s Pro-Palestine student movement, perhaps the most prominent among the dozens of US universities where demonstrations occurred last year.
Trump labeled Khalil as a “foreign radical student pro-Hamas” on social networks and said his prison was the first “of many to come.”
This content was originally published in protesters occupy Trump Tower after a Palestinian student arrest on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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