New York, Mar. 14, (dpa/GNA) – Dozens of people demonstrated inside Trump Tower in New York City against the arrest and planned deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student who played a leading role in last year’s pro-Gaza protests on the campus of Columbia University.
Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that advocates for Palestinian rights, said on social media: “Police arrested hundreds of protestors including Jewish elders, descendants of Holocaust survivors, and students, dragging them out of a sit-in at Trump Tower by their arms and legs.”
The demonstrators demanded, among other things, Khalil’s release, as could be seen on livestreams and in images published on social media.
According to media reports, the police ended the unannounced sit-in in the lobby of Trump Tower, a high-rise building in the middle of Manhattan where US President Donald Trump used to have his main residence.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) said that some 150 people dressed in civilian clothes entered the building on Thursday morning and then removed their outer clothing to reveal red t-shirts with pro-Palestinian slogans.
“We ended up making 98 arrests of people trespassing, obstructing governmental administration in this building,” NYPD Chief of Department John Chell said.
US immigration officials forced their way into Khalil’s flat on Sunday and detained him, according to media reports. He was later taken to a detention centre in the US state of Louisiana, which lies some 2,000 kilometres away from New York.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters in a briefing that Khalil, a student at Columbia, distributed propaganda for Palestinian militant organization Hamas, claiming that he “sided with terrorists.”
Leavitt also said Khalil organized protest groups that disrupted classes and “harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe.”
The spokeswoman said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio “reserves the right to revoke the visa of Mahmoud Khalil,” adding that he has a right to do so for “individuals who are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the USA.”
A court had initially blocked Khalil’s deportation to allow time for a ruling, according to media reports.
Khalil, who, according to the New York Times, is married to a US citizen who is eight months pregnant, has an unlimited US residence permit, his lawyer says.
GNA