Rally at City Hall demands release of Mahmoud Khalil, student leader at Columbia University arrested by immigration officers

Hundreds of people gathered Monday evening at Philadelphia City Hall to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University who was arrested by immigration officers earlier this month.

Participants in the rally included the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other organizations.

Seth Anderson-Oberman, a member of Reclaim Philadelphia, said that he is the father of a college-age student who protested during the pro-Palestinian encampments, and that he was attending the City Hall rally for both Khalil and his daughter’s free speech.

“I was so incredibly proud of the young people for standing up, and we failed them because they arrested a lot of those young people and they criminalized a lot of that dissent, and not enough of us raised our voices at that moment,” Anderson-Oberman said.

He said Khalil’s arrest was a turning point.

“It doesn’t matter what your opinion is, this is a fight for everybody who cares about free speech and whether or not we have it in this country,” he said.

Khalil, 30, who has a green card and has not been charged with a crime, is a permanent legal resident of the United States and a recent graduate student at the university.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman in New York ordered that Khalil not be deported while the court considers legal challenges brought by his attorneys.

Khalil was born in Syria and is the grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said.

He and his wife are expecting a child this spring and were living in a university-owned apartment complex near campus when he was arrested March 8.

In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order against antisemitism that targeted what he described as “Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Khalil’s arrest was the fulfillment of Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.

The Trump administration says the nationwide protests in solidarity with Gaza are antisemitic rather than First Amendment-protected demonstrations.

Columbia University became a focal point of the pro-Palestinian protest movement that swept across college campuses last year.

At City Hall, Daniel Rohe said he had voted for U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, but was protesting with a sign that called Fetterman “a coward” after learning of the Pennsylvania Democrat’s support for deporting pro-Palestinian activists.

”The idea that he would be so threatened by this man’s speech is ridiculous to me,” Rohe said. “It was maybe easy to overlook his stated support for Israel, but now it’s gone beyond just being a supporter of Israel and into a campaign of warfare against freedom of speech, and that’s not right.”

State Sen. Nikil Saval, a Philadelphia Democrat, urged members of Congress to take a stand against the Trump administration’s action.

“The members of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate who are complicit in his march toward authoritarianism should be ashamed,” Saval said, calling on other government officials to speak against Khalil’s arrest.

As a son of immigrants, he said, it was his duty to protest. And he accused the administration of playing politics with Khalil’s case.

“We cannot accept this. We must stand together and show them we see through their attempt. We must demand Khalil’s return,” Saval said.

Brian Jordan, another rally participant, said he was fighting for freedom of speech and for immigrants’ rights.

“They say they are Christian, but this isn’t very Christian of the administration. They forget that Jesus was an immigrant, too.”

Adrianna Torres-García, deputy director of the Free Migration project, addressed the crowd in Spanish and English.

“If we allow the government to decide that some of us have less rights than others, then we are all at risk,” Torres-García told a cheering crowd.

As protesters shouted “viva viva Palestina,” Torres-García urged them to call their representatives to advocate for Khalil.

“The only thing that will keep us safe is each other,” Torres-García said.