Mass demonstrations continued across the city Tuesday over the ICE detainment of pro-Palestine protester and Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.
At Columbia University, long lines formed after security took extra measures to prevent outsiders from entering the campus. Students and faculty were asked to show their college ID to one security guard before scanning it at another point.
Campus demonstrators called for a mass class walkout at noon, during which protesters with shirts reading “Jews say ICE off campus” conducted a sit-in to protest Khalil’s detainment. Some demonstrators were seen exiting the school while others wearing keffiyehs and holding protest signs lined up to enter.
ICE took Khalil — a legal U.S. permanent resident with a valid green card — into custody at his university apartment on Saturday night. Following his apprehension, the White House said it would be working to deport Khalil over his participation in last year’s volatile Columbia University protests — a move opponents charge is an unlawful violation of civil and First Amendment rights.
Later on Tuesday afternoon in Washington Square Park, several hundred also gathered to express outrage over Khalil’s detainment. For more than an hour, demonstrators chanted for Khalil’s freedom and took turns discussing their outrage with the growing crowd.
“Khalil was the first. Those who call themselves the highest authority of the land declared open season on anyone who protests them. I ask again what we are meant to do?” one masked protester said. “I will tell you. We stand here today because I will take the arm of a neighbor, over the handcuffs of an oppressor.”
At around 3 p.m. on March 11, the protesters set off, marching through the Lower Manhattan streets while lugging bellowing banners and picket signs. The group appeared to be made up primarily of young students from various compasses across the city.
In one incident, a brawl broke out between an amateur photographer and several photographers. Police raced in to separate the combatants; however, both parties repeatedly broke free and attacked one another. Cops whisked the photographer away in cuffs.
While many Americans have come out in droves supporting what they feel is an unconstitutional detention of Khalil, EndJewishhatred, a Jewish rights organization, released a statement Tuesday supporting measures taken by the Trump administration.
“For 17 months, Columbia has done nothing to meaningfully protect the civil rights of Jewish students who have been targeted with harassment, intimidation, and even physical violence on a near-constant basis,” part of the statement read. “Defunding hate and deporting foreign radicals are powerful tools to uphold our civil rights. It is gratifying to see the federal government finally stepping in to address the deliberate indifference of Columbia’s administration to protecting minority students, and hope that today’s action will finally wake up Columbia to the need to act expeditiously and impose consequences on discrimination and disruption.”
Khalil’s future is expected to be decided Monday when he is set to appear before a federal judge.
