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sunrise movement
Columbia Students and Faculty Arrested at 'ICE Off Campus' Protest in NYC
Protest organizer Sunrise Movement said “Columbia’s original collaboration with ICE and the Trump administration set the stage for the ICE raids and extrajudicial murders that are now terrorizing communities nationwide."
Feb 06, 2026
A dozen people were arrested Thursday after Columbia University students and professors blocked a major intersection in Upper Manhattan to demand that the Ivy League school declare itself a sanctuary from federal immigration enforcers.
The Columbia chapter of Sunrise Movement—the youth-led climate campaign—organized the protest, which drew more than 150 people on a subfreezing afternoon to condemn US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and what they say is the university's cooperation with the Trump administration.
“Columbia’s original collaboration with ICE and the Trump administration set the stage for the ICE raids and extrajudicial murders that are now terrorizing communities nationwide,” Sunrise Columbia said in a statement following the protest.
A smaller group of protesters blocked the intersection of Broadway and 116th Street, site of the main entrance to the Columbia campus in Morningside Heights, at around 3:00 pm Thursday, according to the Columbia Spectator. Activists sat in a crosswalk wearing matching shirts reading "Sanctuary Campus Now" as chants of "No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA!" and "When immigrants are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!" echoed through the air.
RIGHT NOW, Columbia University students & faculty demand a sanctuary campus. ICE OUT OF NYC. ❤️🔥 pic.twitter.com/zaLbor8EJf
— Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition (CPSC) (@Columbia_psc) February 5, 2026
“It’s very meaningful for faculty and students to take action alongside each other and even get arrested alongside each other,” Columbia student Adeline Sauberli told the Spectator. “I think it’s a message of hope, almost, that you know the core of the Columbia community, the students and faculty who are in classrooms together and talking about ways that the world can be better are also willing to take to the streets and say that we shouldn’t have ICE here.”
Columbia Teachers College adjunct professor E.Y. Zipris told the Spectator that “if I was to really continue to respect the university, then I have to join in with those who are fighting to remind Columbia of how it’s supposed to be."
“For faculty to put themselves in this position where they will be handcuffed and led into an awaiting van and then driven downtown is a tremendous statement of calling out the institution, the board of trustees, and everybody involved, saying, ‘Our students are more important to us than caring for, in this moment, our own actual well being,’" Zipris added.
New York Police Department (NYPD) officers began arresting the protesters blocking the intersection after issuing warnings to disperse. The New York Times reported that the arrests were "calm and deliberate," a "marked contrast from the overwhelming show of force and rows of riot police that often met protesters outside Columbia during the past two years" of protests against the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and Columbia's complicity in the slaughter.
US police arrested 12 anti-ICE protesters at Columbia University in New York. The demonstrators accuse the university of cooperating with immigration enforcement agents and are demanding the campus be declared a sanctuary.
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— Al Jazeera English (@aljazeera.com) February 6, 2026 at 2:07 AM
Organizers of Thursday's action accused Columbia's board of trustees of complicity with the Trump administration's deadly immigration crackdown, pointing to ICE's arrest of former Columbia graduate student and Gaza protest organizer Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who was abducted last March by ICE agents in front of his pregnant wife and jailed without charge or trial in Louisiana before being released in late June.
Other Columbia students who took part in Gaza protests, including green-card holders Mohsen Mahdawi and Yunseo Chung and Palestinian Leqaa Kordia, were also arrested last year.
According to the Spectator:
Protesters called on the university to stop sharing student, faculty, and staff information with the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies; remove members of the board of trustees who have “enabled the Trump administration’s repression of noncitizens"; end the surveillance and discipline of students for political activity; and clarify how the university has implemented its $221 million agreement with the Trump administration.
“Over the past two years, we’ve seen Columbia violently suppress student speech exposing Columbia’s complicity in ongoing genocide in Palestine,” student organizer Cameron Jones told the New York Daily News. “By suspending, brutalizing, and facilitating the kidnapping of their students, the university has made clear that there is no line it will not cross in service of genocidal regimes.”
BREAKING: Columbia students and faculty are blocking the road to demand Columbia become sanctuary campus.That means ending collaboration with ICE's kidnapping of students and workers.
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— Sunrise Movement (@sunrisemvmt.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 1:33 PM
Columbia University denies that it worked with ICE to arrest students, saying in a statement that it "supports the right of individuals to peacefully protest. However, claims made against the university during today’s protest activity, which took place outside of our gates, are factually incorrect."
Arrestee Jennifer Hirsch, a professor at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, told the New York Times that “Columbia was the test case for this government strategy of kidnapping people first and then asking questions later."
In a separate interview with the Spectator, Hirsch said that “it says in the Torah, be kind to the stranger for you are a stranger in a strange land and that was actually in my bat mitzvah Torah portion, and so I’m just responding to what to this moment asks of all of us."
“I think history will judge us for what we do at this moment,” Hirsch said. “It’s scary and dangerous but it’s more scary and dangerous to have masked agents come to your door, break down your door, and kidnap you.”
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‘This Is Disgusting’: Trump Pardons Henry Cuellar After Bribery, Money Laundering Charges
"Henry Cuellar, the last anti-choice Democrat in the House, sold out his own community for bribes from a foreign government and oil corporation," said Sunrise Movement in condemning the Trump pardon.
Dec 03, 2025
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he was pardoning Democratic US Rep. Henry Cuellar, who was indicted by the Department of Justice in 2024 on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and money laundering.
In justifying the pardon, Trump baselessly claimed that the Texas lawmaker was the victim of vindictive prosecution by former President Joe Biden in supposed retaliation for Cuellar's criticisms of Biden's immigration policies.
"Henry, I don't know you, but you can sleep well tonight," Trump wrote at the end of his pardon announcement. "Your nightmare is finally over!"
According to federal prosecutors, Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, engaged in a corrupt scheme that involved taking $600,000 worth of bribes from a fossil fuel company owned by the government of Azerbaijan in exchange for desired policy outcomes.
"The bribe payments were laundered, pursuant to sham consulting contracts, through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar,” prosecutors alleged in their indictment. “In exchange for the bribe payments to Imelda Cuellar, Henry Cuellar agreed to perform official acts in his capacity as a member of Congress, to commit acts in violation of his official duties, and to act as an agent of the government of Azerbaijan."
As noted by congressional reporter Jamie Dupree, Cuellar is the twelfth current or former member of Congress whom Trump has pardoned, and is the first one to receive a pardon without having been criminally convicted.
Cuellar is also just the second current or former Democratic member of Congress to receive a pardon from Trump, who also pardoned former Illinois Gov. and ex-US Rep. Rod Blagojevich, who was found guilty in 2011 on multiple corruption charges related to his attempt to sell a US Senate seat that had been vacated by Barack Obama after his election to the presidency in 2008.
Some progressives expressed revulsion at Trump's pardon of Cuellar, one of the most conservative members of the House Democratic caucus who has nonetheless been defended by party leadership despite criminal charges leveled against him.
"This is disgusting," wrote Sunrise Movement's official X account. "Henry Cuellar, the last anti-choice Democrat in the House, sold out his own community for bribes from a foreign government and oil corporation. Then he cozied up to Trump for a pardon while the Democratic establishment stood by and watched."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of Campaign for New York Health, speculated that Trump pardoned Cuellar as a reward for stifling past progressive policy ambitions.
"Henry Cuellar is part of the Problem Solvers Caucus—a 'bipartisan' group where the Democrat members repeatedly undermine the Democrats' agenda to help Republicans, while taking campaign donations from Republican billionaires," she wrote. "This is a 'thank you.'"
Emma Vigeland, cohost of "The Majority Report" talk show, wondered if Trump had worked out an explicit quid pro quo with Cuellar ahead of the pardon.
"Cuellar is an anti-abortion Democrat who will likely switch parties now that Trump has gotten him out of a dozen bribery and money laundering charges," she wrote.
However, the Texas Tribune reports that Cuellar on Wednesday filed to run for reelection as a Democrat, which for now casts doubt on him switching parties as a condition of getting pardoned.
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'Time to Clear House': Sunrise Movement Launches Major Primary Effort Against Corporate Dems
"For far too long, Democratic leadership has failed to meet the moment," the leader of the youth-led climate movement said.
Nov 13, 2025
Amid growing outrage over corporate Democrats' failure to meaningfully stand up against President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, Sunrise Movement on Thursday launched what it called it "most ambitious" primary campaign to replace feckless incumbents with progressives.
"For far too long, Democratic leadership has failed to meet the moment; it’s time to clear house,” Sunrise Movement executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay said in a statement.
“I’m extremely excited about the crop of candidates running in 2026," Shiney-Ajay added. "This year, we have an unprecedented opportunity to elect a new generation of leaders who are challenging our broken political system and fighting for a livable and affordable country.”
Like many progressive groups, Sunrise Movement has expressed its growing frustration with most congressional Democrats' acquiescence to Trump and Republicans' growing authoritarianism. The youth-led, climate-focused organization was particularly incensed by Senate Democrats' recent capitulation in the government shutdown fight.
"Why the hell would Democrats cave with nothing for the working people? When millions are losing healthcare?" Sunrise asked last week. "If you cave now, you don’t deserve to lead, you deserve to be replaced."
To that end, Sunrise says its new campaign "will include a nationwide field, protest, and communications program targeting over a dozen congressional primaries."
"Sunrise organizers and volunteers will mobilize thousands of young people to knock on doors, make calls, and take direct action to elect progressive champions ready to challenge the Democratic Party’s complacency and reimagine what Democratic leadership can look like," the group continued.
"In the 2026 general election, Sunrise will lead one of the largest youth electoral efforts in the country, organizing students on campuses across the country to ensure young voters turn out to reject authoritarianism at the ballot box and are prepared to mobilize in defense of election results if Trump or his allies attempt to subvert democracy," Sunrise added.
The new Sunrise campaign comes as progressive groups such as Indivisible, MoveOn, and Our Revolution and some Democratic House lawmakers including progressives Ro Khanna (Calif.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) are urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to step down in the wake of the shutdown surrender.
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