Dozens of Stanford community members rallied in White Plaza on Tuesday in support of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University and legal permanent resident whom federal immigration agents arrested Saturday for his role in leading protests on Columbia’s campus. Khalil faces possible deportation.
Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine organized the rally, which began at 2 p.m. The protest was one of many held across the country on college campuses in support of Kahlil, who is reportedly being held in a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
The rally featured speakers from Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, the Asian American Action Committee, activist and novelist Hilton Obenzinger Ph.D. ’97 and history professor Mikael Wolfe.
Attendees started at White Plaza and moved down Panama Mall to the Doerr School, where a faculty speaker with the Stanford Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine received a phone call ordering the rally to disperse.
Another faculty member — who was not involved with the protest but was following from a distance — also told the organizers to disperse or face disciplinary actions if they refused. The rally then attempted to move into Main Quad, but encountered blocked entrances and moved back to White Plaza.
Sheriff’s deputies and administrative staff, including director of operations and student unions Jeanette Smith-Laws, followed the protest closely. As the rally moved into Main Quad, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputies detained one of the rally’s organizers during the protests, but released them after asking them to show a student ID, rally organizers said. Police cited trespassing and noise complaints as the reason for stopping the student.
Speaking to The Daily before the rally, Wolfe called for community members to “mobilize and speak up against this outrage,” referring to Khalil’s arrest.
“Using the case of a legal resident exercising his first amendment rights to protest something that anybody should be able to protest, and to use immigration authority like ICE … is just beyond the pale,” Wolfe said.
In his speech, Wolfe spoke out against the Trump administration and referenced anti-semitic actions by Elon Musk. Wolfe said the administration has weaponized charges of anti-semitism against constitutionally protected protest and speech criticizing Israel.
Wolfe, a Jewish tenured professor at Stanford, also referenced an Oct. 2023 op-ed he wrote in The Daily, saying he was accused of anti-semitism for criticizing Israel, despite also criticizing Hamas.
“This is really important for us to speak up against the Trump administration’s really blatant suppression of free speech,” Wolfe told The Daily.
Obenzinger, an alumnus of Columbia University, spoke to the crowd about his involvement in the student protest of 1968, expressing that “nothing has changed” regarding Columbia University’s actions between 1968 and today.
In January, President Donald Trump signed executive orders denouncing anti-semitism, stating that his administration would use “all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”
Trump has argued that immigrant protesters residing in the U.S. have forfeited the right to stay in the country by supporting the Palestinian group Hamas, which is a designated terrorist organization.
Kahlil and other student leaders at Columbia University Apartheid Divest have rejected claims of anti-semitism, though the protest coalition has at times voiced support for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Trump threatened that Kahlil’s arrest would be “the first of many” in a Truth Social post on Monday. The president has made clear his willingness to punish protests he views as threats of violence since the protests surrounding George Floyd in 2020, when he threatened military force against protestors.
Trump also referred to protest organizers such as Khalil as “terrorist supervisors” in his post, writing that his administration “will find, apprehend and deport” them.
An organizer of the rally, who identified themselves to The Daily by the alias Toyota and wished to remain anonymous due to concerns of potential ramifications, said that the rally aimed to express solidarity.
Many protestors expressed concern over University president Jonathan Levin’s comments to the Graduate Student Council regarding willingness to give student information to immigration agents. Levin said that if the university needed to “comply with federal law,” then they would hand over information on students, though he also highlighted resources including a website containing information to support students with immigration.
“[We rallied] to show the Trump administration that we are here and we are going to build a collective power to stand our ground for what is pro-Palestine and pro-immigration,” Toyota told The Daily.
Evy Shen contributed reporting.
This article was updated to reflect that Wolfe’s speech focused on the Trump administration and Elon Musk.