Trump Tower protest against Mahmoud Khalil’s detention ends in 98 arrests

NEW YORK – Ninety-eight people were arrested Thursday afternoon at Trump Tower while protesting the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, who led pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University last year, New York Police Department Chief John Chell told reporters.

The intergenerational group of protesters, many of whom are Jewish, held up banners that read “Free Mahmoud, Free Palestine,” “Fight Nazis, Not Students,” and “Come for One, Face Us All.” Many wore red T-shirts, some emblazoned with phrases including “Not in our name” and “Stop arming Israel.”

Police officers placed zip ties around some protesters’ hands and carried some out of the building in Manhattan. Those arrested were loaded onto two buses and taken to NYPD headquarters a few miles south. Charges included trespassing, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest, Chell said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Khalil, who has a green card, on Saturday, according to his attorney. He was transferred from New York to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, where he awaits a March 27 hearing.

As a graduate student at Columbia University last year, Khalil represented pro-Palestinian protesters at news conferences and negotiated protesters’ demands with the administration. He and others wanted Columbia to divest from companies associated with Israel, which launched a retaliatory war in Gaza that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Students at Columbia sparked a protest movement that spread to college campuses across the United States.

On Thursday, several Jewish demonstrators challenged the Trump administration’s narrative that Khalil’s arrest was part of a broader campaign to combat “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity” in the United States. Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish anti-Zionist organization, organized Thursday’s rally. The group said more than 200 people participated, including descendants of Holocaust survivors.

“The American government executed my grandparents during a similar time of fearmongering and political repression. I honor their memory by refusing to be silent in the face of the abduction of Mahmoud Khalil,” said protester Rachel Meeropol, the Jewish granddaughter of two Americans, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were put to death in 1953 after being convicted of passing state secrets to the Soviet Union.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment .

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a close Trump ally, shared a video of the protest on X and wrote: “I know the owner of that building and he will definitely be pressing charges.”

Throughout the week, people have demonstrated across New York, including at Columbia, urging Khalil’s release. U.S. Secret Service and New York police officers arrived at Trump Tower on Thursday just before noon and cordoned off the area.

Khalil’s lawyers have argued his arrest violated his constitutional rights to freedom of speech and due process. Civil rights leaders and advocacy groups have also questioned the legality of Khalil’s arrest.

Trump administration officials have denied that Khalil’s arrest violated the First Amendment, saying that Secretary of State Marco Rubio can order a deportation if someone’s actions create potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.

After 5 p.m. Thursday, quiet groups of protesters gathered in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan as they were released by police. Boxes of pizza and leftover doughnuts sat on a bench. People registered their names with a volunteer jail support team that planned to offer help when demonstrators returned for their April 2 court date.

David Bragin, an 81-year-old Jewish protester from Brooklyn, reviewed his charges on a bench while saying that Trump’s administration was only using Khalil “as an example.”

“They’re saying he’s the first, and then they’ll go after anyone they can,” Bragin said. “This what we read about – how fascism creeps up little by little.”

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Video: Over 250 demonstrators in New York City gathered inside Trump Tower on March 13, protesting U.S. immigration authorities’ arrest of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.© 2025 , The Washington Post

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