Demonstrators at Columbia University continuing to protest ICE’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil briefly chained themselves to a campus gate on Wednesday afternoon.
Eight protesters used bike locks to shackle themselves to the wrought-iron gates of St. Paul’s Chapel at 1160 Amsterdam Ave. at around 1 p.m. on April 2. The protesters identified themselves as Jewish students who are fuming over the detention of Khalil, a fellow student who was detained by ICE last month.
Khalil was taken into custody despite being a legal U.S. permanent resident with a valid green card and not having broken any actual laws. His detention was said to be in retaliation for his role in pro-Palestine campus protests at Columbia last spring that saw a weeks-long occupation and a siege of Hamilton Hall, ending with hundreds of arrests made.
Despite Khalil’s legal residency, the White House has been endeavoring to have Khalil — whose wife is eight months pregnant — deported, which his legal team says is a violation of his First Amendment and civil rights. Now protesters say they want to know who inside the college gave up his name to ICE.
“Which one of them turned over student names to ICE? That was our only demand of them,” one of the chained students said. “We are staying here until we comply with their demand.”
Hundreds of fellow students gathered to support the sit-in, with some even draping a banner from the school grounds above.
Just over an hour after they locked themselves in, scores of NYPD officers and members of the school’s public safety office blocked off the sidewalk. They began using bolt cutters to cut them free before removing them from the grounds.
Undeterred, protesters returned to the gates with the chains still hanging from their wrists, pledging not to move until the school Columbia responds.
