A dozen Columbia University students and faculty were arrested Thursday during a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s crackdown on immigration, The New York Times reported.
Other publications, including the student newspaper, The Columbia Spectator, reported only that faculty and students were among the 12 people arrested.
The protest, organized in part by a group of Columbia faculty and staff called CU Stands Up and the Columbia chapter of the climate activism organization the Sunrise Movement, drew about 150 people, many wearing shirts that read “Sanctuary Campus Now” and “ICE Off Campus.” The 12 were reportedly arrested after they blocked traffic on Broadway, just outside campus, and refused to heed police warnings to move.
While the New York Police Department did not provide details of the arrests or the charges filed, protest organizers told the Times the demonstrators were charged with refusal to disperse and blocking vehicular traffic. They were released after a few hours and instructed to appear in court on Feb. 23.
Mila Rosenthal, an adjunct professor of international and public affairs who was among those arrested, said university administrators need to do more to protect international students on campus.
“We’re seeing what’s happening in Minneapolis, just all of that terror that ICE is sowing there,” she told the Times before her arrest. “And there’s no reason that Columbia can’t say, ‘This ends here.’”
Columbia officials took issue with some accusations the protesters made about the university allowing ICE on campus, where affiliated noncitizen students including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi have faced arrest and detention.
“Columbia University supports the right of individuals to peacefully protest,” the university wrote in a statement. “However, claims made against the University during today’s protest activity, which took place outside of our gates, are factually incorrect.”
It noted that ICE must have a judicial warrant—not just an administrative one—to access nonpublic areas of campus, including classrooms and dorms, and that the university follows clear protocols in handling visits from the agency.
“As we made clear repeatedly, no member of Columbia’s leadership or the board of trustees has ever requested the presence of ICE agents on or near campus,” the statement concluded. “This is a false assertion.”
