On March 10, two days after the Trump regime kidnapped Mahmoud Khalil, Trump viciously posted, "This was the first of many to come." In the days since, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have gone after a number of students and professors—defying judges’ orders and targeting individuals solely for their political speech and activity in opposition to the U.S.-backed Israeli genocidal slaughter of the Palestinian people.
Cornell Graduate Student Momodou Taal
Momodou Taal is a doctoral candidate in African Studies at Cornell University and a prominent voice in pro-Palestinian protests. He's a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia with a visa to be in the U.S. legally. Taal has said law enforcement agents "from an unidentified agency" had been seen parked outside his home in Ithaca, New York. This week, Taal's lawyers petitioned in court for a temporary restraining order aiming to prevent his arrest. However, even after their filing, his attorneys received an e-mail from a Justice Department lawyer asking Taal to turn himself in to ICE. Taal said, "Trump is attempting to detain me to prevent me from having my day in court." Taal's lawyers are asking the court to delay his having to turn himself in to ICE.
Judge Blocks Deportation of Georgetown University Researcher
Badar Khan Suri is from India, teaching at and attending Georgetown as a postdoctoral fellow at the university's Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. On March 17, Suri was arrested by masked DHS agents outside his home in Arlington, VA, allegedly for “spreading Hamas propaganda.” Suri has spoken out against the genocide in Gaza. His wife is an American citizen of Palestinian descent, whose father was a former adviser to a Hamas leader who was assassinated by Israel in Iran last year. So just because of his speaking out against genocide, and due to his partner's family background, Suri was abducted and threatened with deportation. Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, yet he was transferred to an ICE jail in Louisiana, in danger of being quickly deported. His attorney filed to demand his release the next day, followed by an emergency motion filed by the ACLU of Virginia on the 20th on Suri's behalf. On that day, a U.S. District Court judge blocked his deportation, ordering that Suri "shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the court issues a contrary order."
Doctor at Brown University Deported to Lebanon Against Judge's Order
Dr. Rasha Alawieh is a 34-year-old kidney transplant specialist physician and a medical professor at Brown University. Alawieh is a native of Lebanon and has been in the U.S. with a valid visa since 2018. On her recent visit to Lebanon, the U.S. Consulate issued her an H-1B visa, which allows highly skilled foreign citizens to live and work in the U.S. But on March 20, returning from that visit to Lebanon, she was held at Boston's Logan International Airport for 36 hours without explanation. CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) agents claim they found "sympathetic photos and videos" of figures in Hezbollah on her phone. She explained that she had attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which was attended by almost 1 million people! Her family quickly filed a lawsuit, and a federal judge ordered the authorities on Friday not to deport her without giving the court two days' notice. But—in defiance of the judge's order—Alawieh was put on a plane to Paris, presumably the first leg of a trip back to Lebanon. On Sunday morning, the judge issued a second order, saying there was reason to believe CBP had willingly disobeyed his previous order.
Columbia Student Forced to Flee to Canada
Ranjani Srinivasan, a 37-year-old doctoral student from India studying at Columbia University, was targeted by immigration authorities at the beginning of March even though she had no ties to the protests against the U.S./Israeli genocide of Palestinians. She was arrested outside of a protest as a passerby last April and later released. Many months later, she was notified that her student visa had been revoked, without explanation. A couple of days later, ICE agents knocked on her door—she did not open it, which was completely within her constitutionally-protected legal rights. They came back a second time when she wasn't there. She then packed her bags and flew to Canada. The agents came a third time with a warrant, but she was gone. She then found Columbia had withdrawn her enrollment. She says she is being targeted for exercising her right to free speech. The head of DHS, fascist Kristi Noem, bragged that Srinivasan had “self-deported,” and aired a video of her getting on an airplane, implying that this justified what the U.S. government had done. Her lawyers denied this, arguing that her visa had been revoked for “protected political speech” and that she was denied her right to challenge this unjust revocation.