A number of arrests were made on Thursday after anti-Israel protesters marched into the dining area of Trump Tower in Manhattan, apparently to protest the imminent deportation of Columbia University protest agitator Mahmoud Khalil.
Videos taken at the scene showed at least 100 protesters involved, with a number from the pro-Palestinian group Jewish Voice for Peace wearing red shirts that said: “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel.”
Anti-Israel protesters flood NYC’s Trump Tower to demand Mahmoud Khalil’s release https://t.co/0nbzLMtlAk pic.twitter.com/SvCjlqkfD3
— New York Post (@nypost) March 13, 2025
The protest began at about noon ET as demonstrators swarmed the dining area, some carrying signs that read, “Fight Nazis not students,” “No Muslim ban ever,” and “Jews for Palestinian freedom,” and, “You can’t deport a movement.” Others could be heard shouting, “Free Mahmoud. Free them all!”
Within 30 minutes, the NYPD was on the scene — and while an exact count has not been publicly released, NYPD spokespeople told The Post that multiple protesters were taken into custody. The area was cleared in less than an hour.
The group’s “demands,” according to a report from The New York Post, were to “free Mahmoud and free Palestine” — and someone was heard shouting, “We are saying if you come for one of us, you face us all.”
Jewish Voice for Peace reportedly live-streamed the entire protest and issued a statement, saying, “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.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly defended the decision to revoke Khalil’s Green Card and deport him over his participation in the disruptive anti-Israel protests that took over Columbia University last year — protests that, in many cases, left Jewish students in fear for their physical safety if they even attempted to attend classes.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that if people seeking student visas declared their intentions to behave in the way that Khalil had since his arrival in the United States, the visa would never have been approved in the first place.
“We can deny you that visa,” he said. “We can deny you that if you tell us when you apply, ‘Hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa. I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages.’”
Rubio went on to explain that such behavior after arriving in the United States would result in the revocation of any visa or Green Card, followed by deportation.
.@SecRubio on arrest of Mahmoud Khalil: “This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.” pic.twitter.com/eej8vyBLKm
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 12, 2025
