Did Biden have protesters arrested during his term?

1. Arrests at a Biden campaign site: what happened in Wilmington

In February 2024, 21 climate activists with the Sunrise Movement were detained after bringing a protest into the building that houses President Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington; local police said they detained and were charging demonstrators with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct (WHYY) ^[1].

2. Campus confrontations: hundreds arrested amid pro‑Palestinian protests

A wave of pro‑Palestinian encampments and occupations at universities in spring 2024 led to mass arrests across multiple campuses: New Haven and New York University saw dozens to roughly 150 arrests on one night, Columbia had scores of arrests during a separate action, and UCLA reported more than 200 arrests during a police sweep of an encampment—events that prompted public comment from the White House and calls from lawmakers for federal action (The Guardian; PBS News; The Guardian again) ^{[3] [4] [5]}.

3. Arrests near Biden appearances and symbols of his administration

Protest groups also staged actions at media sites tied to Biden appearances and at public spaces connected to his presidency: about 50 pro‑Palestine demonstrators were arrested at NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Center protesting Biden’s TV interview, per reporting from The Hill, underscoring how protests targeting the president or his public engagements have drawn police responses ^[2].

4. Who ordered the arrests — federal chain of command versus local police

Available reporting shows these arrests were executed by municipal and campus police or other law-enforcement entities rather than by a documented, direct presidential command in the public record; coverage emphasizes law‑enforcement actions and local decisions ^{[1] [3] [4]}. Republicans in Congress pushed for more federal intervention and even the deployment of federal officers in response to the campus unrest, a political pressure point that illustrates how elected officials sought to influence law enforcement choices without evidence in the sources that the president personally mandated specific arrests ^[3].

5. Political framing and partisan reactions around the arrests

The arrests became a political flashpoint: Republicans seized on the campus unrest to criticize Biden as weak on law and order, while many Democrats defended his handling and called attention to the complexity of balancing dissent and disorder; national coverage highlights both critiques of the administration and defenses from Biden allies ^{[5] [3]}.

6. Claims about Biden’s personal history with arresting protesters

Separately, Biden has repeatedly told an anecdote about being arrested while a teenager protesting housing segregation; fact‑checks and contemporaneous archives find no evidence he was ever arrested in that episode, noting instead that newspapers documented nearby protests in 1959 but not an arrest of Biden (PolitiFact; FactCheck.org; other archival reporting) ^{[6] [7] [8]}.

7. What the reporting does not show (limitations)

The supplied sources do not contain any direct documentation that President Biden personally ordered arrests of protesters; they document law enforcement actions during his term, political pressure from lawmakers to use federal authorities, and legal or campus decisions to clear encampments ^{[1] [3] [4]}. If a reader seeks proof of a presidential order to arrest protesters, that specific assertion is not supported by the provided reporting.

8. Bottom line

Reporting establishes that hundreds of protesters were arrested during Biden’s term at demonstrations connected to his presidency, campaign, or national policy debates, but the evidence in these sources attributes those arrests to police and campus or local authorities and frames them as law‑enforcement responses amid political controversy—not as direct arrests personally ordered by the president himself ^{[1] [3] [4] [2]}.