Thousands of participants marched to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Southwest D.C. on April 5 to protest recent arrests of pro-Palestine activists under the Trump administration’s direction.
In addition to demanding an arms embargo on Israel, the protest called for the release of student activists Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University and Rumeysa Ozturk from Tufts University, among others.
“They tried to scare us … by targeting all the students who did the right thing and stood up against genocide,” Layan Fuleihan, education director at The People’s Forum, said. “But they have failed. Look around you today, and you will see just how much they have failed.”
Khalil, a leading negotiator for last year’s pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia, and Ozturk, who co-authored an opinion article in The Tufts Daily criticizing the university’s response to pro-Palestine protests, were both arrested in March by ICE agents. Also arrested in March was Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen teaching and studying as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University.
Nas Issa, a member of the New York City chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement, said President Donald Trump’s administration is using the arrests to establish a precedent that people in the United States are willing to accept as normal.
“We know that this isn’t going to stop at targeting pro-Palestinian activists or people organizing against this genocide,” Issa said in an interview with The Eagle. “It’s going to be generalized against any form of political dissent.”
Khalil held a green card allowing him to live and work permanently in the United States, while Ozturk and Khan Suri held H-1 and J-1 visas respectively, according to CNN. All three have since been revoked.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 28 that, since taking office, he has signed 300 or more letters revoking various visas, including those of students, according to the New York Times.
Protesters gathered at Pennsylvania Ave NW and 3rd Street NW at 1 p.m. to chant and listen to speeches from speakers. Those speakers included Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and political Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. The crowd began to march toward ICE headquarters around 3:10 pm. They left around 4:20 p.m. and marched towards the National Mall, where the protest ended at about 4:45 p.m.
“We need to say no about what’s going on right now,” said protest attendee Jeff Semmerling, a theatrical mask maker and artist who owns Art Side Out Studio in Baltimore, Maryland. “It’s absolutely unacceptable, and people have the power. We can shut this down, and we must.” Semmerling came to the protest in support of CODEPINK, a feminist grassroots organization.
Adlah Sukkar, a physician and an early founding member of Doctors Against Genocide, participated in the march alongside other members of the global coalition. The group is made up of healthcare workers who demonstrate around the world.
“We’re also here because we feel it’s really important to stand in solidarity with our healthcare colleagues who have been abducted, tortured by Israeli forces, killed,” Sukkar said. “And then there’s been the bombing of hospitals, which is absolutely against international law.”
Sukkar referenced how Israeli troops recently killed 15 Palestinian medics.
“If you can’t speak out about the killing of healthcare workers, the killing of patients, the bombing of hospitals, I don’t know what moral standing we can have to actually take care of our patients here,” Sukkar said.
David Wolinsky, a protester at the march, said his Jewish identity plays a role in his pro-Palestine activism.
“There are two types of Jews in the world now: those who know genocide when they see it, and those who still believe — which are most Jews, especially my age — that Israel is defending itself,” Wolinsky said. “They’re doing it in my name, which means I take it personally.”
Several signs at the protest read “US is sending weapons for genocide,” “Resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “Free Mahmoud — Rumeysa.”
During the speeches, organizers placed a line of around 17,000 children’s shoes along the middle of the road where audience members gathered, according to Issa, who said each pair of shoes represented a child killed by Israel in the war in Gaza.
“It’s really important for people to have a visual reference point for how many lives that really is, and I think seeing it lined up in rows of shoes really drives it home for people that these aren’t just abstract statistics,” Issa said. “Every one of those children was someone’s entire world.”
One demonstration at the march featured a cardboard silhouette of a little girl with text that read, “In Gaza 1 Child is Killed or Injured Every 10 Minutes,” according to the World Health Organization. Demonstrators stood around the cutout wearing Palestinian keffiyehs and white robes covered in faux blood. Some held bundled white cloth meant to resemble swaddled infants.
Participants wrote the name and age of one Palestinian child who died on each bundle. At the front of the showcase, they laid a large sign against the pavement that read, “The Screams of Palestinian Mothers Will Haunt Us.” Next to the text was a drawing of a weeping mother holding a swaddled infant.
Some protesters held a cardboard cutout of a drawing of Trump with red eyes and blood splattered on his face.
Al Glatkowski, a member of Veterans for Peace, attended the march. He was one of the two crew members who seized control of the SS Columbia Eagle in 1970 during the Vietnam War and mutinied against the captain and crew in protest of their mission to deliver napalm bombs for U.S. use in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
“I was a civilian in the war, and I had an opportunity to actually do something to stop at least my vessel, and we did,” Glatkowski said. “I’ve been fighting for human rights and civil rights for... since I was 16, 15. I’ve supported Palestine since I was 15.”
Glatkowski talked about the role his family plays in his activism.
“[This issue] personally matters to me for my grandchildren and my children, and my children know that I’m somebody that protests and demonstrates, and my grandchildren do too,” Glatkowski said. “And today, one of my granddaughters hugged me and said, ‘Go get them, Pop.’”
This article was edited by Abigail Hatting, Maya Cederlund, Tyler Davis and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Olivia Citarella, Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Hannah Langenfeld.
