Tag Archive for: college students

ICE Arrests Another International Student As State Department Revokes 300 Foreign Student Visas

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a University of Minnesota (UMN) graduate student Thursday as the Department of State moved to revoke about 300 foreign student visas.

UMN authorities announced the ICE arrest occurred at an off-campus residence, calling the situation “deeply disturbing.” The Minnesota Daily vaguely identified the graduate student as an international student in the university’s  Carlson School of Management.

“The University had no prior knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities before it occurred,” university leadership said. They also offered mental health support to any member of the university distressed by the incident.

“Carlson School staff have been in close contact, monitoring the situation and helping connect the student with resources and support,” Dean Jamie Prenkert wrote, adding that “[i]n the current climate, detentions like these deeply affect our community.”

The arrest occurred as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while meeting Thursday with Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, told reporters the State Department had revoked an estimated 300 international student visas.

“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio said.

Prospective international students who intend to join “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus” will not receive study visas, Rubio added. Should such students receive their visas under false pretenses and then join such movements while in the U.S., they would lose their visas, he said.

“Now, once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States, and we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from our country. So it’s just that simple,” Rubio told reporters.

ICE arrested Columbia University student and prominent pro-Palestine protester Mahmoud Khalil on March 8. The State Department revoked his green card as prosecutors argued Khalil did not disclose his work with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) while applying to be a U.S. legal permanent resident.

Fellow Columbia student Ranjani Srinivasan fled the U.S. for Canada after her study visa was revoked. In a letter to a France-based group of pro-Palestine academics narrating her experience, she alleged the university cooperated with law enforcement to target her.

Yunseo Chung, another Columbia student and legal permanent resident, became the object of an ICE search and decided to sue the Trump administration, The New York Times reported. U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Buchwald reportedly ruled Tuesday that ICE must stop trying to arrest and deport Chung. 

“After the constant dread in the back of my mind over the past few weeks, [Buchwald’s] decision feels like a million pounds off of my chest. I feel like I could fly,” Chung told The Guardian.

Rumesya Ozturk, a 30-year-old Tufts University student, was also taken off the street Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking her deportation, The Associated Press reported.

In addition, ICE asked twice-suspended Cornell University international student Momodou Taal to surrender after he preemptively sued the Trump administration.

AUTHOR

John Oyewale

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

ICE Asks Pro-Palestine Foreign Student To Surrender Himself After He Sues Trump

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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked a Cornell University doctoral student and prominent pro-Palestinian protester to surrender himself for deportation proceedings after he preemptively sued the Trump administration, his lawyers said.

Momodou Taal’s lawyers said Friday that ICE ordered and pressured Taal to surrender after he sought a judge’s temporary restraining order to prevent the Trump administration from detaining and deporting him. He sought the restraining order after ICE sent agents to stake out his house, according to Taal’s representatives.

“ICE invites Mr. Taal and his counsel to appear in-person at the HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] Office in Syracuse at a mutually agreeable time for personal service of the NTA [Notice to Appear] and for Mr. Taal to surrender to ICE custody,” an email sent Friday by the Department of Justice prosecutors partly read, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.

An NTA is an initial step toward deportation, according to CNN.

The prosecutors said they “wanted to reach out to establish a line of communication, and relate some information concerning your client” while their application for admission to the federal court in New York was pending, according to the email.

“In the past 48 hours, this administration has taken unprecedented steps to bypass the courts, by pressuring our client, Mr. Momodou Taal, to surrender to ICE,” Maria Kari, one of Taal’s attorneys, wrote in part.

“The Trump administration responded to Momodou Taal’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the executive orders by sending agents to stake out his house,” wrote Eric Lee, Taal’s lead counsel. “When we asked the Court to enjoin the administration from detaining Mr. Taal as the case progresses, the administration responded by ordering him to surrender to ICE. This does not happen in a democracy.”

Taal’s lawyers and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed the lawsuit enjoining the Trump administration from using two executive orders to “authorize deportation or prosecution based on protected speech,” the ADC said March 16.

Taal and two other fellow plaintiffs — identified in the lawsuit as plant science doctoral student Sriram Parasurama and Professor of Literatures in English Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ — felt the “chilling effect” of the executive orders, which they argued “violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike by impermissibly restricting speech based on viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment,” according to the lawsuit.

Taal is a British-Gambian PhD candidate at Cornell’s Africana Studies and Research Center, the ADC noted. The Ivy League university suspended him twice in 2024 for disruptive on-campus political activities, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. The other two plaintiffs are U.S. citizens, according to the ADC.

All three plaintiffs “now fear government retaliation for engaging in constitutionally protected expression critical of U.S. foreign policy and supportive of Palestinian human rights,” the lawsuit partly read.

Kari said the case was “a litmus test for the state of free speech in America.” Lee said ICE‘s request for Taal to surrender should make every American outraged and keen to defend free speech.

Law enforcement agents appeared around Taal’s home and on the Cornell University campus — both in Ithaca, New York March 19, Taal posted on X. He claimed that the Trump administration was seeking to preventively detain him and reiterated his commitment to pro-Palestinian activism.

Taal posted Oct. 7, 2023 — the same day Hamas conducted a lightning terrorist attack on Israel — “Glory to the resistance!” The post drew criticism.

AUTHOR

John Oyewale

Contriubutor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.