Anti-Israel demonstrators marched in Times Square on Saturday night to protest the apprehension and imprisonment of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil.
Animated Khalil advocates braved the rain in midtown, chanting and displaying signs that included “Free Mahmoud Khalil Now!,” “Hands Off Our Students,” and a variety of other slogans.
Controversial anti-Israel advocate Linda Sarsour spoke at the event and rallied the protestors around the former Columbia student.
On Friday, Louisiana immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled that the Trump administration can deport the Syrian-born Khalil over his involvement in the wild anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University in 2024.
Lawyers for Khalil ripped the decision, harping on the free speech considerations at play in the deportation case.
“Our constitution allows people to speak their minds,” Khalil lawyer Marc van der Hout said Friday after the decision.
“Nazis in this country, the Supreme Court has held, are able to demonstrate, are able to express their beliefs — but not Mahmoud Khalil. The Ku Klux Klan is able to march and express its belief — but not Mahmoud Khalil,” van der Hout argued.
The former Columbia graduate student was taken into custody by ICE agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-funded Manhattan apartment building.
The Department of Homeland Security stated that Khalil was in the country illegally as his student visa was revoked due to his campus political activity.
Khalil was one of the leaders of the Columbia University protests in 2024 — acting as a lead negotiator and representative for demonstrating students who set up encampments on the Morningside Heights campus.
On Thursday, the key piece of evidence for the Trump administration’s case against Khalil was revealed to be a roughly two-page letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In the letter, Rubio characterized Khalil’s continued presence in the United States as carrying “potentially serious adverse foreign consequences, and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest.”
Rubio claims in the letter that it is US policy to “combat antisemitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”
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