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March 13 (UPI) -- Police arrested nearly 100 protesters demanding the release of Syrian national Mahmoud Khalil during a sit-in protest at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday. The protesters are members of Jewish Voice for Peace, which describes itself as "Jewish leftists" opposed to Zionism. The group streamed the protest live.
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The protesters uniformly wore red T-shirts bearing slogans reading, "Stop arming Israel" and "Not in our name," NBC News reported.
The protesters began arriving at Trump Tower at 11:30 a.m. EDT and entered through its front and side doors before removing their outer clothing to reveal their uniform red shirts and slogans underneath.
About 300 protesters participated in the sit-in protest, JVP communications director Sonya Meyerson-Knox said.
Local police said they arrested 98 protesters on charges accusing them of trespassing, obstructing government administration and resisting arrest.
The Trump administration is "misusing claims of anti-Semitism in order to try to divide and prevent people from coming together to stop his authoritarian takeover of our country and his destruction of civil liberties," Meyerson-Knox told WABC-TV.
Khalil is a Columbia University student and has been instrumental in protests there and at Barnard College that have included temporary takeovers of buildings, assaults on staff and students, and threats against Jewish students.
Khalil and other protesters have demanded the university divest itself of all investments that support Israel's military.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday confirmed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Khalil and said he is to be deported for activities supporting Hamas, which the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization since 1998.
Rubio said Khalil, who has a green card and says he is married to a U.S. citizen, has circulated flyers supporting Hamas and has been an instrumental figure in the ongoing protests and Columbia University and Barnard College.
Khalil will remain in detention at an ICE facility in Jena, La., while he contests his pending deportation.
ICE arrested Khalil while he was at his campus apartment on Saturday.
Nearly 1,300 Jewish students at Columbia University and Barnard College this week signed an open letter to university officials and regarding their concerns about personal safety and university inaction regarding the ongoing protests.
