Sansome Street rumbled with hundreds of people chanting against a Louisiana immigration judge ruling on Friday that Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist at Columbia University arrested by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, can be deported. The street vibrated as speakers from the Palestinian Youth Movement and Party for Socialism and Liberation gathered in front of San Francisco’s ICE building.
With over 200 people in attendance, the protesters’ support for Khalil was heard loud and clear, and that support extended beyond Khalil. Many of the event’s speakers were quick to note that Mohsen Mahdawi, another participant in pro-Palestinian protests last year at Columbia University, was arrested Monday morning by ICE at an appointment for his citizenship. This comes on the heels of the Trump administration revoking over 300 international students’ visas for “destabilizing” college campuses as of April 1. One current student at San Francisco State University had their visa revoked, according to a message sent by President Lynn Mahoney.
The protest for Khalil was organized over the weekend and marketed as an emergency mobilization on the PYM’s Instagram. The urgency was a result of an energized group that thought this protest was necessary. Rami Abdelkarim, a member of PYM, shares that belief.
“The urgency behind that is that if we do not show out, we are manufacturing consent for the Trump administration to continue deporting to use this case as precedent,” Abdelkarim said. “Not only to go after permanent residents of the U.S., but also paving the way for naturalized citizens as well.”
As the Trump administration continues to target students and universities across the nation, such mobilizations have become more common. SFSU’s chapter of the General Union of Palestine Students organized a similar rally on-campus earlier this month. Suzanne Ali, an organizer with PYM, emphasized the importance of student organizing at this moment.
“They arrested Mahmoud to suppress his activism on Palestine, but they are threatening the constitutional rights of everybody, whether you’re a citizen or not,” Ali said. “They’re trying to shred the Constitution, essentially by threatening freedom of speech, all because they’re afraid of the national student movement’s success in mobilizing people across all sectors of society on the issue of Palestine.”
The success of students’ movements was supported by Violette Mansour, another organizer with PYM.
“We’ve seen throughout history the student movements of the past, of the anti-war movement, against apartheid in South Africa, of free speech at Berkeley, have been at the forefront of so many fights that got us justice, that got us liberation,” Mansour said. “So they’re attacking students to keep us quiet, to keep us silent and to keep the students afraid from standing up recognizing the power that they have and actually transforming our society.”
Among the protestors stood students and faculty from various universities in the Bay Area. Student speakers from Stanford University, University of San Francisco and SFSU zeroed in on the importance of student solidarity in the face of ICE questioning and raids. With ICE rumors floating around SFSU’s campus earlier this semester and the prevention of ICE questioning elementary school children in Los Angeles last week, the student speakers took the opportunity to focus on showing solidarity with other California schools, both in the Bay Area and throughout the state.
Three students spoke outside the ICE building before Hatem Bazian, a continuing lecturer at UC Berkeley and the founder of American Muslims for Palestine, closed out the first section of the rally.
“They think by taking Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, students, faculty and staff and by surveying all of us, they could turn the clock back. But we’ll tell them the following: Leonard Peltier is out of jail,” Bazian said. “We have a protest coming up in colleges on the 17th, make sure to show up. If they’re taking those who are undocumented, get your cousin who’s a citizen, your relative who’s a citizen, your uncle who’s a citizen, a homeless citizen and let’s all stand to build the wall against oppression, all of us.”
After Bazian stepped down, organizers led a chant of “Students, students make us proud, tear the occupation down,” alongside a call and response with, “stand up, fight back.” The crowd mobilized and marched through the Embarcadero to Embarcadero Plaza as motorcycle cops flanked the procession while police liaisons with those words emblazoned on neon vests protected the protestors.
“R-Evolution” loomed over the crowd at the plaza as onlookers both scoffed at and joined in the protest. The hundreds from Sansome Street had only gained in numbers, as a sea of keffiyehs and Palestinian flags amassed in the center of the plaza.
Mansour rallied the crowd through a handful of final chants at the plaza before closing out, “Make sure to leave in pairs; it’s really important to get home safe so that we can see you next time. Make sure to keep your eyes around you. And don’t talk to the cops.”
