Protesters gathered at Free Speech Alley Friday calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The demonstrators, organized by LSU’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, chanted and delivered speeches condemning Khalil’s detention as an assault on free speech and student activism. Despite the midday heat, the group of roughly 30 protestors’ chants could be easily heard over the bustle of Free Speech Alley.
“He’s there because the state has decided he’s a threat to American interests, and it’s just wrong,” said Ryan Spalt, president of SDS at LSU. “It’s repression, and so we’re demanding his immediate release.”
Khalil, a lawful permanent resident, was taken into ICE custody earlier this month and transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. Federal officials have not charged him with a crime, but supporters say he was targeted for his role in pro-Palestinian activism on campus.
“This is a very clear example of how the attacks on immigrants and Palestine are very, very connected,” Spalt said. “I think it’s something that is relevant everywhere in America, just because it happened in Columbia doesn’t mean that it’s not going to happen here.”
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Tia Fields, a policy associate with the Louisiana Organization for Refugees, attended the protest and claimed Khalil’s arrest is a part of a broader immigration crackdown, particularly in Louisiana.
“We are the second largest ICE detainee state, next to Texas; they’re expanding the privatization of more jails and facilities,” Fields said. “You will see that there will be a lot more deportations, and they’re going to be held here in our state.”
Some students, watching from a distance, pushed back against the protestors’ message, arguing Khalil’s detention was a legal matter, not political persecution.
“Donald Trump, who’s the president, is enforcing a law that if you’re a noncitizen of the U.S. and you are on campuses supporting a terrorist organization like Hamas, you’re going to get your green card revoked, and you’ll be deported,” said coastal environmental science senior Morgan Guidry. “He’s enforcing the law, no matter what, however point of view you want to look at it, he’s just enforcing a mandate.
But for protestors like Gabriela Juárez, a political science sophomore and SDS member, the issue is much bigger than just Khalil alone.
“Every aspect of our economy, every aspect of the university system, of our government, is colluded in order to import and to impress and to enforce the Zionist order that is occupying the Palestinian people right now,” Juárez said in a speech. “And why are they doing this? Are they doing this out of simply the desire of their hearts? Does it come out of Netanyahu’s wet dreams? No, it comes out of money. It comes out of finance.”
Juárez continued to characterize the events surrounding Khalil’s detention as part of a broader class struggle, and called for further mobilization going forward.
“The majority of Americans are stuck in credit card debt, in student loan debt. They live their lives in offices, in tiny dictatorships governed by richer men,” Juárez said. “And we have to be on the front line because we have the time, the power, the education to know how to overturn this, to know what needs to be done in order to free everyone.”