Supporters of the Palestinian causes with links with American universities were detained during the repression of the Trump administration against immigrants.
President Donald Trump and other officials accused demonstrators and others of being “pro-Hamas”, referring to the Palestinian militant group who attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Many demonstrators said they had denounced Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
More than half a dozen people are known to have been placed in police custody or expelled by US immigration and customs officials in recent weeks.
Rumeysa Ozturk
Federal officers arrested the 30 -year -old Turkish student on Tuesday, Rumeysa Ozturk while walking along a street in the Boston suburbs. A main spokesperson for the Department of Internal Security said without testifying that an investigation revealed that Ozturk, a doctoral student at TUFTS University, “engaged in activities in support of Hamas”, a terrorist group designated by the United States.
Friends and colleagues from Ozturk have said that his only known activism was a co-author of an editorial in a student newspaper who called on Tofts University to engage with students’ requests to reduce links with Israel. Ozturk was taken to an Ice detention center in Louisiana. An American district judge gave the government until Friday to explain why Ozturk is detained.
Mahmoud Khalil
This month, agents of the application of the immigration law arrested and owned Mahmoud Khalil, a legal and Palestinian militant resident who was in view of the demonstrations in Columbia last year. The administration said that he had revoked Khalil’s green card because his role in campus demonstrations was anti -Semitic support in Hamas. He fights the deportation.
Khalil was a negotiator for Columbia students when they had negotiated university officials to end their campus on campus last spring. He was born in Syria but is a legal American resident married to an American citizen.
Yunseo Chung
Yunseo Chung is a Columbia student and a legal American resident who moved to America from Korea when he was a child. Chung attended and was arrested in a sit-in this month at the neighboring Barnard College to protest against the expulsion of students who participated in pro-Palestinian activism.
The Ministry of Internal Security wishes to expel Chung and said that it “is involved in driving”, in particular by being arrested for offense. A judge ordered immigration agents not to hold Chung while his legal dispute is underway.
Badar Khan Suri
Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown scholarship holder from India, was arrested outside his house in Virginia and held by masked agents for internal security on allegations that he spread Hamas propaganda. Suri’s lawyer wrote in a legal file that he had been targeted because of his publications on social networks and “the identity of his wife as Palestinian and his speech protected by the Constitution”. Suri holds a visa authorizing him to be in the United States as a guest researcher, and his wife is an American citizen, according to court documents.
Suri was taken to a detention center in Louisiana, according to a government website. His lawyers are looking for his immediate release and stop the deportation procedure.
Leqaa Kordia
Leqaa Kordia, a Newark resident, New Jersey, was detained and accused of not having left the United States after the expiration of her student visa. Federal authorities said Kordia is a Palestinian from the West Bank and that she had been arrested in Columbia or nearby during pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Columbia said he had no trace of his student.
Kordia is owned in an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, according to a government database.
Ranjani Srinivasan
Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian and doctoral student in Columbia, fled the United States after immigration agents wanted it in its university residence. The Trump administration said it had revoked the Srinivasan visa to “plead for violence and terrorism”. Srinivasan has chosen to “self-work”.
The officials did not say what evidence they had that Srinivasan recommended violence. Her lawyers deny the accusations and she told the New York Times that she had not helped organize demonstrations in Columbia.
Alireza Doroudi
The student at the University of Alabama, Alireza Doroudi, was detained by ICE on Tuesday, confirmed the university. The Crimson White, the student newspaper, said that Doroudi had been detained, but neither the university nor the newspaper explained why he was in police custody.
David Rozas, a lawyer representative Doroudi, said in an email that Doroudi was detained in Alabama, but he thinks that Doroudi will be transferred to an immigration establishment in Jena, Louisiana. Doroudi is a doctoral student from Iran studying mechanical engineering, said Rozas. Doroudi said he was not aware of any alleged criminal activity or violations of his legal status.
Dr Rasha Alawieh
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a specialist in Lebanon’s kidney transplant who worked before and lived in Rhode Island, was expelled this month, even if a federal judge ordered not to be removed from his functions as long as an audience could be held. Internal security officials said that Alawieh had been expelled as soon as she returned to the United States of Lebanon, despite an American visa because she “openly admitted” the former Hezbollah chief of Hezbollah Nasrallah. Alawieh told the police that she followed him for his religious and spiritual teachings and not his policy, according to court documents.
She had to start working at Brown University as an assistant medicine teacher. Stephanie Marzouk, Alawieh lawyer, said that she would fight to bring the 34-year-old doctor to the United States
Momodou Taal
Momodou Taal is a doctoral student at Cornell University whose visa was revoked after participating in demonstrations on the campus.
Taal, a citizen of the United Kingdom and the Gambia, asked a federal judge to stop his detention during his legal dispute. The government says that it revoked the Taal student visa because of its alleged involvement in “disruptive demonstrations”.
His lawyers claim that the 31 -year -old doctoral student in Africana studies exercised rights of freedom of expression. Taal said he will go to the immigration authorities if the court determines that the government is legally acting. Taal declared in a declaration of justice that “I already feel like a prisoner, although everything I have done is to exercise my rights”.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
