Jewish protesters have stormed Trump Tower in the city of New York, demanding the release of a pro-Palestinian activist arrested by immigration officials.
At least 150 people poured into the building’s lobby in midtown Manhattan to demonstrate against the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, who led Columbia University protests in 2024 against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The group from Jewish Voice for Peace carried banners, wore red shirts reading “Jews say stop arming Israel” and chanted “Bring Mahmoud home now!”
Local police said 98 were arrested on charges including trespassing, obstruction and resisting arrest.
Image: Charges included trespassing, obstruction and resisting arrest. Pic: AP
Image: Demonstrators from Jewish Voice for Peace protested inside Trump Tower. Pic: AP
Donald Trump previously described Mr Khalil, 30, who has lawful permanent resident status in the US, as “anti-American”. He is married to an American citizen.
The postgraduate student, from Columbia University’s school of international and public affairs, has been a prominent figure in the university’s pro-Palestinian student protest movement.
Image: Local police said they detained 98 people. Pic: Reuters
This week, his deportation was put on hold while his lawyers challenged his detention at an immigration detention centre in Louisiana. On Saturday, he was arrested outside his university residence in Upper Manhattan.
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He has not been charged with a crime.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has claimed he has reasonable grounds to believe Mr Khalil’s activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences”.
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2:34
Student activist Mahmoud Khalil arrested in Trump crackdown
On Thursday, Mr Khalil’s lawyers asked a federal judge to release him from immigration detention.
They argued that President Trump’s administration targeted him for deportation because of his activism, and his detention is a violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech.
Mahmoud Khalil: An American tolerance test
There’s more to this story than the story itself.
In Donald Trump’s USA, the proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil are an American tolerance test.
At the heart of it is the US Constitution itself and the First Amendment that enshrines the right to free speech.
Mahmoud Khalil is the measure of where it starts and where it ends – the fate of others will turn on his test case.
As President Trump put it, his arrest is the first of “many to come”, citing students who had “engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity”.
Separately, his lawyers asked the court to block Columbia University from sharing student disciplinary records from campus protests with a Republican-led US House of Representatives committee.
Mr Khalil’s case has become a flashpoint for Mr Trump’s pledge to deport some activists who participated in the wave of protests on US college campuses against Israel’s military assault on Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the militant group Hamas.
Image: Mahmoud Khalil outside the Columbia University campus in April 2024. File pic: AP
Mr Trump’s administration has said pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, including at Columbia, have included support for Hamas and antisemitic harassment of Jewish students.
Last week, the administration said it cancelled grants and contracts worth about $400m (£309m) to Columbia because of what it describes as antisemitic harassment on and near the school’s campus.
Student protest organisers have said criticism of Israel and its actions is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Image: Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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Who is being targeted in Trump’s immigration raids?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Image: Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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2:46
Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”