- Kira Pan & Roman Trovato | Staff
- Mar 12, 2025 (DailyCal.org)
Hundreds gathered on Sproul Plaza on Tuesday afternoon in response to the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine activist and student at Columbia University.
Khalil was detained Sunday at Columbia by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which revoked his student visa and green card. In a statement, President Donald Trump claimed that this was the “first arrest of many” to be made against pro-Palestine student activists.
Protest attendees marched around campus, making stops in front of Dwinelle, Wheeler Hall and Doe Library, chanting “free free free Palestine,” “viva viva Palestina” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as they walked between locations.
They also held signs reading “Release Mahmoud Khalil,” “ICE off our campus” and “free Mahmoud free speech.”
Zaid Yousef, a campus law student and president of the Muslim Student Association, was among the main speakers at the protest. Yousef said the purpose of the demonstration was to continue supporting the ceasefire in Gaza and call out the government’s “unconstitutional” response to peaceful student protests, referring specifically to Khalil.
Campus graduate student Ameen Lotfi denounced the conflation of anti-Israel protests with antisemitism, claiming this creates a “fertile landscape” for ICE to target students and green card holders on university campuses.
Lotfi added that students and faculty at UC Berkeley cannot be apathetic about pro-Palestine activists being targeted at Columbia.
“We’re here to say that we do have a voice and there’s no business as usual,” Lotfi said.
Students and organizations from San Francisco State University, University of San Francisco and Berkeley City College attended the protest. Students and faculty in attendance from campus organizations included Jewish Voice for Peace at UC Berkeley, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association.
Ethnic studies professor Juana María Rodríguez, a member of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, said she feels her freedom of speech, as well as that of everyone else, is under government attack.
“I’m here to protect the rights of free speech, the right of every person to protest — whether we’re protesting for Palestine, whether we’re protesting against cuts against science funding,” Rodríguez said. “I’m here to make sure that we have that right, and that we will not be criminalized or targeted by this government for making our voices heard.”
