Protesters occupying Trump Tower demand Mahmoud Khalil’s release | Mahmoud Khalil

Protesters organized by a progressive Jewish group occupied the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Thursday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia University student held by US immigration authorities.

Chanted slogans included “free Mahmoud, free them all” and “fight Nazis, not students”.

Other chants in footage posted to social media included “We will not comply, Mahmoud, we are on your side” and “Bring Mahmoud home now.”

Many of the protesters in a group estimated to be between 100 and 200 strong wore red T-shirts bearing the message “Jews say stop arming Israel”. By early afternoon, footage was posted showing officers from the New York police department beginning to arrest protesters.

The protest in the gold-coloured lobby of Donald Trump’s signature Fifth Avenue building, the president’s New York home, was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, which describes itself as “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world” and has staged protests at New York landmarks including Grand Central Station.

The actor Debra Winger participated in the protest, the Associated Press reported.

Khalil, 30, was a lead organizer of protests at Columbia University over Israel’s war in Gaza, which began after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.

Having completed a master’s degree, Khalil is due to graduate from Columbia in May. Though he is a legal permanent US resident and is married to an American citizen, he was arrested in New York last Saturday.

He is now in custody in Louisiana, without charge but held under a rarely used immigration law provision that allows the secretary of state to approve the detention of anyone deemed a threat to US foreign policy.

His lawyer, Baher Azmy, the director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, has said the arrest is “absolutely unprecedented” and “essentially a form of retaliation and punishment for the exercise of free speech”.

Amid Trump administration attacks on universities over pro-Palestinian protests, observers say Khalil is being used as a test case for mass arrests. Trump has said Khalil’s arrest is “the first of many to come”, and promised to deport students seen to be guilty of “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity”. Khalil has not been accused of breaking any laws.

On Thursday, Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, who is eight months pregnant, spoke to Reuters. She said Khalil asked her a week ago if she knew what to do if officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) came to the door of their home.

“I didn’t take him seriously. Clearly I was naive,” she said.

She added: “I think it would be very devastating for me and for him to meet his first child behind a glass screen.”

Her husband “is Palestinian and he’s always been interested in Palestinian politics”, she said. “He’s standing up for his people, he’s fighting for his people.”

Abdalla, 28, said in a statement read by one of Khalil’s attorneys on Wednesday: “My husband was kidnapped from our home, and it is shameful that the US government continues to hold him because he stood for the rights and lives of his people. I demand his immediate release and return to our family.

“So many who know and love Mahmoud have come together, refusing to stay silent. Their support is a testament to his character and to the deep injustice of what is being done to him.”

Sonya E Meyerson-Knox, the director of communications for Jewish Voice for Peace, posted footage of the Trump Tower protest on Thursday and said: “We will not comply – Mahmoud we are in your side[,] 300 Jews and friends in Trump Towers [sic] [because] we know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent[.] COME FOR ONE – FACE US ALL[.]”