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Time Magazine
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
How the U.S. Betrayed International Students
Momodou Taal, a Cornell University international student who brought a lawsuit against the Trump Administration, didn't appear for his March 25 court hearing in Syracuse, N.Y. The day before he filed the lawsuit, which requested an injunction on two of President Donald Trump's executive orders for allegedly violating speech and due process rights, the U.S. government had revoked Taal's student visa and soon after, commenced deportation proceedings. I attended the hearing in Syracuse where I live and work as a professor, one of many members of the public who filled the gallery of the courtroom that afternoon. Taal's absence served as a chilling reminder of the dire situation students like him face in the wake of Trump's immigration policy; appearing could have meant Taal's immediate arrest and detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The hearing was partly meant to address Taal's request for a temporary restraining order on his arrest and deportation proceedings, which the court ultimately denied. Days later, he left the country of his own accord. Taal is now one of many international students who have criticized the U.S. government and Israel while studying in the U.S. and since, had their ability to stay in the country jeopardized. Ranjani Srinivasan, a Fulbright recipient and Columbia University international student from India decided to self-deport to avoid detention after her visa was revoked. And Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University was surrounded and taken on the street by masked agents. These are just a couple of the cases that have been made known to the public. Widespread reports reveal that ICE agents are targeting these students and throwing them into detention. On March 27, U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, announced that some 300 international students already have had their visas revoked this year, caught in the crosshairs of the attacks on political dissent, noncitizens, and higher education. In the following weeks it was revealed that the Trump Administration had terminated the immigration records of approximately 4,700 international students. Then, last week, the Trump Administration abruptly reversed their policy and the Department of Justice announced that ICE would reinstate their immigration records. But for many affected students, the path forward remains uncertain. Over one million international students are currently enrolled across U.S. colleges and universities, following a recent rise due to the intentional drive—in the vernacular of higher education—to ' internationalize ' our campuses. This trend is a facet of the global commodification of higher education, with universities across the country relying heavily on the enrollments, revenue, and labor of international students. Their growing presence means billions of dollars for the U.S. economy. However, international students aren't only deemed vital because of their economic importance; universities often boast of the increase in international student enrollments as part of their commitments to diversity and inclusion. But given the recent arrests of our international students, the new message being communicated by our country's leaders is that their pursuit of higher education in the U.S. is purely an economic transaction and as foreign students, they have no place engaging in political criticism. U.S. history tells a different story though. Students from overseas have long played a valuable role in the culture of American campuses. In my own work, I have written about how Indian international students were key figures in anti-colonial struggles that took form in the U.S. in the early 20 th century. And in the 1960s and 1970s, students from India, Iran, and China, along with other foreign students, took part in the internationalist social movements that spread across American campuses to protest U.S.-led wars, fight racism, and hold repressive governments to task. In such historic moments, students from around the world stood side-by-side with American students, risking political repression to offer moral clarity to our collective conscience and push us toward a more just global society. International students joining the student-led demonstrations against the killing of Palestinians in Gaza continued this tradition of free speech and protest. Still, this isn't the first time that foreign students have come under national scrutiny. For instance, after the 9/11 attacks, international students were rendered a potential national security threat; consequently, several surveillance measures were taken, including the permanent establishment of a mandatory monitoring system called the Student and Exchange Visitor Program or, ' SEVIS,' which requires higher education institutions to track and report on its international students to the Department of Homeland Security. But today, the renewed targeting of international students has revolved around a crackdown on political protest on campuses—a crackdown which began under the Biden administration and has accelerated under the Trump administration. The fact that students have been detained and deported suggests that there has been insufficient institutional resistance to the erosion of some of the most fundamental principles necessary to the health of academia—academic freedom, freedom of speech, the right to dissent. It also sends the message to the very students we draw in from abroad to fulfill economic agendas and marketing narratives, that their membership in U.S. university life is contingent on their political silence. However, international students are our students and remaining complacent as their perspectives are brutally suppressed and they are dragged away from our campuses—which should serve as safe, nurturing spaces for intellectual exchange and political criticism—harms us all. Targeting international students threatens all of us by dictating the terms by which anyone can lay claim to institutional spaces and cultures of higher learning in the U.S. To be sure, the cost of silencing dissenting voices won't be paid by international students alone.
CNN
03-04-2025
- Politics
- CNN
College Arrests: 'A Kind of Policy That Ends Democracies' - The Assignment with Audie Cornish - Podcast on CNN Audio
Audie Cornish 00:00:00 'At the height of the campus protest over the Israel-Hamas War, my colleague Elle Reeve visited several colleges to talk with students and to get a sense of the mood on campuses. And one of the students that she talked with was a doctoral student at Cornell named Momodou Taal. Elle Reeve 00:00:24 'There's a lot of concern that pro-Palestinian students are pro-Hamas and pro-terrorist tactics. Going all the way up to national politicians. Is that true? Momodou Taal 00:00:34 Absolutely not true. My condemnation is inconsequential. I think it's quite racist, Islamophobic, that before I'm allowed to have a view on genocide, I have to condemn a terrorist organization. Audie Cornish 00:00:47 So this interview is from November 2023. This was less than a month after the Hamas terror attack against Israel that killed more than 1,200 people. When Israel retaliated, bombarding the Gaza Strip and creating this humanitarian disaster, Momodou Taal was among those thousands who protested on college campuses. Momodou Taal 00:01:08 in my lifetime, it may never change. But I feel encouraged because at the end of the day, I feel like we are on the right side of history and I can go to bed quite comfortably. Audie Cornish 00:01:16 'But today that bed is no longer in the United States. Taal was attending Cornell on a student visa. He grew up in London and his family is from the Gambia and Senegal. Because of his protest activity, the State Department just a few weeks ago canceled his student visa and told him to surrender to immigration and customs enforcement. He tried to fight it in court, he lost. So this week, rather than be arrested by ICE agents, he decided to self-deport. There are reports of at least a dozen students and faculty who have been detained by federal agents. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that he has personally directed more than 300 visas -- primarily student visas, some visitor visas -- to be revoked. Secretary of State Marco Rubio 00:02:05 If you invite me into your home because you say, I want to come to your house for dinner and I go to your house and I start putting mud on your couch and spray painting your kitchen, I bet you you're going to kick me out. Well, we're going to do the same thing if you come into the United States as a visitor and create a ruckus for us. We don't want it. We don't want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country, but you're not going to do it in our country. Audie Cornish 00:02:26 So today we're asking, how does this happen? How can the government detain legal immigrants without charges? How is this affecting students and faculty at campuses around the country? And who is challenging the government over potential First Amendment violations for punishing people who say things that the administration labels a threat? I'm Audie Cornish, and this is The Assignment. So we've been reporting on these detainments at CNN. In fact, Jake Tapper tried to get the State Department to explain what, if any, actual crimes these students and scholars are accused of. Jake Tapper 00:03:06 Last week I asked the Department of Homeland Security, the US State Department, and the White House for any specific evidence about any of these graduate students or scholars who have been targeted by the Trump administration for deportation. Audie Cornish 00:03:21 He ended up reading part of their response on air. Jake Tapper 00:03:24 We can confirm that every individual who has had their visa recently revoked by this administration has displayed problematic behavior that would have made them ineligible for a visa if they would have disclosed this information during the vetting process. The US government is now revoking their visa retroactively to ensure we're taking deliberate actions to protect our communities and campuses, unquote. Audie Cornish 00:03:48 'So in other words, there are no specific charges. One of the academics targeted by the Trump administration's policy is Dr. Badar Khan Suri. He's a scholar at Georgetown, an Indian national. He's here in the States on what's called the J-1 visa, which is for people studying or doing research. In March, ICE came to his house in Virginia. Again, no charges have been filed, but Khan Suri has been accused of posing a threat to national security. That J-1 visa, it was revoked. which allowed the government to send him to a detention center in Louisiana. One of the first reporters on the story was a student, a senior at Georgetown. Franzie Wild 00:04:26 'So I was sitting like at home in my off-campus house. I was talking to one of my roommates and our managing editor at The Voice, Eddie, sends me a text being like, have you seen this? Audie Cornish 00:04:37 'So that's Franzie Wilde, an editor at the student-run Georgetown Voice. She's been covering this story for a while. Franzie Wild 00:04:44 'I have talked to folks in my classes who had him as a professor. I have talked to students who are in Muslim life who visit the masjid who babysat his kids. They are a family that is like known on this campus and it was both I think interesting and sad and shocking because it's not to say that I predicted this but it was definitely something we had been talking about because his wife, Mapheze Saleh, she's a student at Georgetown here. She is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef who helped found Hamas, was an advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, but actually stepped down from the group after they refused to hold elections. So like way pre-October 7th. Audie Cornish 00:05:28 'But that familial, literal familial connection was there and well-known. Franzie Wild 00:05:32 'Was there and well- known. Audie Cornish 00:05:34 But she is the legal citizen. Franzie Wild 00:05:36 She is also not, you know, I had never seen either of them in a protest up until, you know, DHS detained him. Like they were not people who were particularly involved in the activism seen at Georgetown. I mean, I know a lot of the, a lot students and a lot faculty who are very involved and they were never super on my radar like that. Audie Cornish 00:05:54 It's funny, you and I are going down this rabbit hole of what precisely their connections are, what it may have been. Is that because we don't actually have official charges? Franzie Wild 00:06:03 So I was going to bring that up. Like I have read every single PACER document that is available. I went to Alexandria and I got the documents the next morning that we that the news the political news broke and read the habeas corpus petition, you know, like maybe a dozen times. There are no charges. Like that is the biggest thing. Audie Cornish 00:06:20 'But the DHS spokesperson, you know, said publicly that Khan Suri was actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media. Franzie Wild 00:06:33 'I'm sure there are people out there that can see what he has said as problematic or as verging into anti-Semitism or as anti-semitic. Audie Cornish 00:06:40 But again, there are not charges. Franzie Wild 00:06:42 But there are no charges, just a vague connection. And as far as I have gotten up to speed on how the First Amendment protects immigrants in the last two weeks, as far I understand it, it does. And there were Georgetown students who were arrested in the spring at the encampment. There were Georgetown students who were trespassing on property, which is what they were charged with. They were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. He is not one of those people. He is not one of those students. He is someone who has, you know, ever also been sanctioned, as far as I can tell, by the university for anything, as we know. Audie Cornish 00:07:17 So the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he has commented on all of this a couple of times because in some cases, it's been reported that it's his duty to actually revoke the visa for these special cases under the laws that they're using to do it. And he says, why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt? We gave you a visa to come in, study and get a degree and not become an activist that tears up our university campuses. Um, and that these disruptions he calls them, they're, they affect student life. So that's sort of his, what are students think of this kind of comment? Cause he's hardly the first person to say it. Franzie Wild 00:07:58 'I think that so much of your learning and university life happens in the classroom and it happens due to like great and free-spirited discussion in the classroom. And then so much of it happens because of discussions outside of the classroom. You know, like when everything, when there was the encampment in the spring, I was coming back from reporting and regularly having these really in-depth discussions with my roommates and my housemates about, okay, well, where are the boundaries between free speech and disruptive conduct? Say what you will about the protests in the spring, I also saw how, despite their many flaws, they were an exercise in self-governance for a lot of these students. They were, you know, trying to figure out how to negotiate with authority, and, you know, for the 14 days that the kids at Georgetown and at GW had their encampment, they were also trying to, like, govern themselves in a way. There were certainly a lot of mistakes, and it certainly was also disruptive to the rest of campus, but there was also learning happening there. And I think that to say that this is all categorically and like antithetical to the mission of the university is I think not to like entirely understand how a university ecosystem functions. Audie Cornish 00:09:16 How have these detentions, the reports of arrests, the reports of visas being revoked, affected the mood on campus? Franzie Wild 00:09:28 I think fear is certainly there for some people. So I know students who have canceled their trips home because they're afraid about not being let back in the country. And again, these are people who didn't even really participate in any kind of protest. I know students who are also really afraid, for example, of speaking to campus media, of giving, you know, kids who were previously willing to go on the record with their first and last name and school and class year, who now will only give us a first name. Audie Cornish 00:09:57 And we should say, Franzie, we called several other campus news organizations and they did not want to speak. So I don't want to put you on the spot here, but you're doing something that other people are actually even worried about doing. Franzie Wild 00:10:09 Look, yeah, I mean, I am worried about it as well. I certainly had a moment where I was like, oh no, am I gonna get a bunch of emails after this? I got emails in the spring from people who either misunderstood what our coverage was trying to do, I got DMs in the fall, and this again is from both sides. Audie Cornish 00:10:31 One of the things that is the backdrop to this is the Trump administration has a program called catch and revoke where they use like AI and surveillance to data scrape and figure out what people are posting online. Franzie Wild 00:10:44 Yeah. Audie Cornish 00:10:44 Are students in general nervous? Franzie Wild 00:10:47 'I would say so. I actually, I attended a debate with the college Republicans on Thursday. That was about Badar Khan Suri's detention and it was sort of like a pro-con, should he be deported, should he not, basically. And the moment I walked in the room wearing my Georgetown Voice press badge, I had a student, like a sophomore come up to me and just be like, we really hope you respect that in terms of people's names, this is off the record. And that is students on both sides. That is students that closely align with this administration in terms of their political beliefs. And that is also students who showed up to counter debate them. And I think it's interesting that at this moment, I think between the internet and sort of what you're talking about with AI and scraping, and also just the ability to like, the inability to really stay decently private, the inability be forgotten on the internet, I think students are just so aware that no matter what they say, if it's political, it has the ability to gain some traction online and then they have the ability to receive everything from like public harassment to private messages to like consequences when it comes to career and jobs and things. Audie Cornish 00:12:03 So where is the university in all of this? Franzie Wild 00:12:06 We got an email from Robert Groves, a campus wide email, who is the interim president here at Georgetown and in it he mentioned the detention of Dr. Badar Khan Suri. We are concerned about the circumstances of his detention and the questions it may raise about issues of free speech. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly, and we will continue to monitor this closely. Audie Cornish 00:12:32 I hear all the keywords. Franzie Wild 00:12:33 Yeah, and protecting freedom of speech, yes. Audie Cornish 00:12:35 So for students are they like oh he's definitely gonna protect us if something goes sideways for me? Or are they looking at this response the response at Columbia University right which was under threat of having um funding taken away and seeing a university that's not going to be trying to help them out if things go wrong? Franzie Wild 00:12:57 I think there is maybe a little bit more faith at Georgetown. I think that the Jesuit tradition also changes things. Audie Cornish 00:13:04 Yeah, in what way though? There's lots of conservative Catholics, so you just mean with the Jesuit tradition of education, or? Franzie Wild 00:13:11 'I think- I think with the Jesuit tradition of education, the Jesuits tradition of social justice, I think also it's maybe more students are thinking about like, okay, Georgetown's calculation to the Trump administration is a little bit different than Columbia's calculation to the Trump Administration, because Georgetown can say that its decisions are based on Jesuit and Catholic values, and that it makes these decisions based on its Catholic faith and mission. and that that is seen differently by the Trump administration, then maybe a university making decisions based on like a secular code of values. Audie Cornish 00:13:46 Is this having, all of this tension having a broader effect on students? Franzie Wild 00:13:51 Yeah. Audie Cornish 00:13:51 Or is this kind of outside of what people are thinking about? Franzie Wild 00:13:54 'A common theme is like it is not a great time to be a graduating college student right now. It feels like there's a lot of things coming down on you and I think certainly also for students who are here on student visas that fear is like much more acute. And you know, I mean this is going to get very personal, my dad is a college professor and he's also a green card holder and he he just actually canceled a work conference outside of the country because he was like a little bit just- had talked it over with his immigration lawyer and was like a little bit worried. Audie Cornish 00:14:24 Wait a second, wait a second. Franzie Wild 00:14:25 Sorry. Audie Cornish 00:14:26 You did what we call buried the lead. Franzie Wild 00:14:29 I shouldn't have buried the lead there, but yeah. Audie Cornish 00:14:30 Okay, but that's important because this means that this story hits home from for you in a different way I mean your dad being a green card holder in a way that is not a meaningful distinction anymore to this Trump Administration, is that scary? Franzie Wild 00:14:45 Yeah, it's it's scary. I mean, the whole thing is scary. And I think also as someone who also would like to go into journalism and believes very deeply in the First Amendment, it is scary that suddenly we are making distinctions about which people are allowed to say certain things. Particularly because at least in the case of most international students, you know, they've been invited here to in our, like in discourse, in our intellectual communities. They are here because Georgetown believes that they have something intellectually to contribute and an important and unique perspective. Audie Cornish 00:15:25 So you've got this going on at school and what you're covering, but then at home, your dad is talking to immigration attorneys. Do you get nervous about what you post online? Do you have other concerns, like that are starting to literally be closer to home? And what has that conversation been like in your own family, if you don't mind me asking? Franzie Wild 00:15:45 Yeah, it's been scary for sure. I had my dad call me on Saturday where he was like, I'm not sure if I should cancel my trip. He is in the process of applying for citizenship right now, so that's also some sort of background on this. And he told me, he was like I'm not like, what do you think? And I was like... I mean, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. All I know is that this is what things are like. Audie Cornish 00:16:09 He's asking you because you're reporting on this area. Franzie Wild 00:16:12 'Yes, yes. Literally, yes. And I said to him, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if things get worse. I love you and I want you to- my dad is not, he is not involved in any kind of activism. I did say that like, you know, if there's a mistake with you trying to re-enter the country and you do get detained or something, I would hate for it to mess up your citizenship process. Audie Cornish 00:16:39 'I'll just leave you with this: this thing that you have inside you that's driving you to continue to cover this story, listen to it, you know? And you don't have to hold it at arm's length, because it's a sobering moment when your own parent has to ask you- and I come from an immigrant family, and this has happened, where your parent has to ask, you, what do you know about what my rights might be? Franzie Wild 00:17:07 'Yeah, no, I mean, it's really scary. And I'm certainly also very grateful that he is still very proud and supportive of me wanting to do journalism and me wanting try and tell these stories. He's like, I want you to also keep doing this work. I want to tell this as accurately as possible, tell this with as much of an eye for understanding also who these people are. I mean I think that that is something that I've certainly also been approaching Dr. Khan Suri's- the reporting on him. Audie Cornish 00:17:44 'Franzie Wild is a senior at Georgetown. She's also an editor at the Georgetown Voice. That's the school's student-run news magazine. So how is all this legal? Well, stay with us. The story getting the most attention right now is around the detention of Mahmoud Khalil. He's a lawful permanent resident and a former student activist at Columbia University. His green card was revoked reportedly due to his role in the anti-war protests over Gaza that basically made Columbia the center of a massive political backlash. So it's been really hard to get people to talk about any of this for a story because of fear of the Trump administration. Jameel Jaffer agreed to sit down with us because he's with the Knight First Amendment Institute and they have filed suits challenging these arrests. Jameel Jaffer 00:18:38 The Knight Institute sued on behalf of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association just last week, challenging the constitutionality of this policy. And we've asked a court to invalidate the policy on First Amendment grounds. Audie Cornish 00:18:53 I'm also talking to him because he started his legal career in the aftermath of 9/11. He worked at the ACLU on cases related to free speech and government surveillance. And he says that going after protesters is not new for the U.S. government. Jameel Jaffer 00:19:08 'During the Vietnam War, the army used to track anti-war activists by cutting out newspaper articles in which they were quoted or in which their particular advocacy was described. Audie Cornish 00:19:23 But today, there are outside groups that can and have doxxed and revealed identifying information about Gaza demonstrators. The U.S. State Department has a program called catch and revoke that uses AI to scan social media for evidence that a foreign national, in this case, students or scholars, will that they've supported Hamas or other designated terrorist organizations. Jaffer knows the ins and outs of these kinds of programs, which do not rely on evidence in the way we may be familiar with as citizens. Jameel Jaffer 00:19:54 'Yeah. So, so the Trump administration is not alleging that these students and faculty engaged in criminal conduct. They are not allegating that these people engaged in conduct that renders them inadmissible to the United States independently. Instead, what they're arguing is that American foreign policy interests are compromised by allowing students and faculty, non-citizen students and faculty to engage in pro-Palestinian protest, and they are revoking the visas on that basis. Now, I don't know that that's true in every single case because they haven't cited a justification in every case, but in the cases for which they've cited a justification, their justification seems to be foreign policy is compromised. And there is a provision of the 1952 Immigration Act, the McCarran-Walter Act, as a provision that allows the Secretary of to revoke a person's visa if he concludes that it undermines American foreign policy to give that person a visa. Audie Cornish 00:20:59 We're also hearing that they're sent to facilities in states like Louisiana in fact, where there are ICE detention facilities. I think there's one stretch that's nicknamed Detention Alley. Is that unusual? Jameel Jaffer 00:21:12 My impression is that the Trump administration is trying to move people very quickly out of jurisdictions in which the courts are likely to be relatively sympathetic and to jurisdictions in which Trump administration believes the judges will be more sympathetic to it. And I think that that's what that's about. It's about uh, first interfering with their access to counsel, making it difficult for lawyers to, to represent them and then second making it more likely, at least in the Trump administration's view, that the judges will go their way. And I actually remember this because I was doing this kind of work in the, in the months after, after 9/11, when they were immigrants being rounded up, you know, in connection with, with the government's investigation into, into 9/11. And it turned out that none of these immigrants had anything to do with 9/11. But at the time, the Bush administration was saying, you know, this is all about the 9/11 investigation, right? It's not the first time we've seen that particular tactic. Audie Cornish 00:22:15 You know, there have been universities like Columbia, correct me if I'm wrong, which provided protest footage, for instance, to ICE in past cases. We know it's a very mixed bag in terms of colleges and universities letting ICE officials come onto campus, but what's your sense of how universities are responding? Obviously, Columbia, concerned about having other kinds of funding revoked, but could colleges be doing more? Jameel Jaffer 00:22:44 Yeah, well, so in general, I've been really dismayed and I don't think I'm the only one by the way that universities have responded to the Trump administration's threats. The Trump administration is making a much broader range of threats to universities, not just, you know, we're going to deport your students, but also we're gonna deprive you of funding. Now, it's turned out that compliance doesn't mean that the Trump administration is going to move on to another organization, another institution. We've seen this over and over again, not just with universities, but with law firms, with even with media organizations. You know, the Trump administration, if they, if a sense that an institution is caving to their demands, their response is usually just to make more demands. And that's what they have done with Columbia. We, you know, have now had, we're onto our fourth president now in about 18 months or two years and the university is still very divided over how to respond. And many faculty and students are really dispirited by the university's failure to do more, to defend its own values. Audie Cornish 00:23:57 When I was listening to the administration, trying to get a sense of how they justify this, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said, if you invite me into your home, because you say, I want to come to your house for dinner, and then I go to your, and I start putting mud on your couch and spray painting your kitchen, and you're going to kick me out. And he like, that's the analogy he used, basically saying, if come to the U.S. as a visitor and quote, create a ruckus, we don't want it. We don't it in our country. Go back and do it in your country. What's your response to this? Jameel Jaffer 00:24:30 'So I think if Marco Rubio were talking about students who were credibly alleged to have engaged in criminal activity, then that argument would make sense to me. Now, the problem with Rubio's argument is that this policy is not limited to people who have engaged in a criminal conduct. When Marco Rubio says we don't like people who create a ruckus, he means we don't like people who exercise their First Amendment rights. And I think that that is a really, really disturbing thing. We don't want the government to be restricting visas to people who agree not to exercise their First amendment rights. I mean, in fact, it would be difficult to think of anything more un-American than a condition like that. Audie Cornish 00:25:19 'Although, when I think about when I covered the South and covered activists in the civil rights organizations, how they were surveilled by the FBI, you and I talked to- I mean, you started just around after 9/11, so did I as a journalist. And I remember every security person would tell me about a mosque where the imam was saying X, Y, and Z, and this made for a concern about terrorism. Oddly, this does feel very American to use immigration enforcement around ideas that worry the government. Jameel Jaffer 00:25:56 'I mean, you're definitely right. There is a history of, I would say, the abuse of the immigration laws for this purpose. This is not the first time the government has tried to use the immigration laws as mechanisms of censorship. Now, that said, that history has been discredited like if you look at the Cold War history of the use of the immigration laws to keep out people who are suspected of being members of the Communist Party, for example. The people who were excluded from the United States on that basis include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pierre Trudeau, Dario Fo, Doris Lessing. It's like a list of people who, you know, received the Nobel Prize for Literature. And there are now, there's a series of court decisions that have been issued over last half century in which courts considered the government's authority or the government argument that it had the authority to exclude people from the country on the basis of their political views and even in those cases which involve non-citizens who are outside the country and had been you know seeking entry to the country but denied visas on the on the basis of the speech even in these cases the courts have said over and over that the government has broad authority to exclude non-citizens from the country but it can't exclude people on the basis of viewpoint alone. And I think if that's the rule, so that statement I just made is, it's a paraphrase, but it's very close paraphrased of what the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said in post 9/11 cases. Audie Cornish 00:27:33 So now you're getting into the legal questions. And I'm wondering, does that mean the legal environment is very different now than it was in that post 9/11 period? Are there things that make this moment either uniquely dangerous or are there protections that people may not realize yet? Jameel Jaffer 00:27:53 'The First Amendment is definitely stronger today than it was when those Cold War cases were decided. I'm not actually sure how much reassurance we should take from the fact that the courts are likely, if they actually reach the merits in these cases, to rule that the First Amendment protects non-citizens because a lot of damage can be done before that ruling comes out. Audie Cornish 00:28:22 And what do you mean by that? Just to these families, or are you talking about something bigger? Jameel Jaffer 00:28:28 To these families first and foremost, you know, it's going to be years before one of these cases gets to the Supreme Court. Audie Cornish 00:28:38 Years while they may be in detention without charges. Jameel Jaffer 00:28:40 'They may be in detention while these abstract principles are being argued about in the courts. But then there's also the chilling effect that the policy has, not just on the people who've been targeted, but on many, many other people who worry that they might be targeted. And that has implications not just for them, but for the rest of us, because we all benefit from hearing the views and engaging with and associating with. non-citizens and it's one of the things that has made American universities, you know, so great is that people come from all over the world to study at American universities in part because there are other people from all around the world there. You know, we're all used to talking about these kinds of policies in a particular way as if they are, you know, things that... Audie Cornish 00:29:31 In the abstract. Jameel Jaffer 00:29:32 'Well, we can agree or disagree about the wisdom of this particular policy. I really do see this policy as a profound threat to our democracy. Once you let the government start putting people behind bars on the basis of their political views, it's not obvious why this would end with non-citizens or why it would end with pro-Palestinian speech. You know, the government has already started to revoke not just visas but green cards as well, so even legal permanent residents have been rounded up. The Trump administration has made clear they're going to go after naturalized citizens as well. So, you know, we've already made the leap from visa holders to green card holders. Seems like we're going make the leap to green-card holders to naturalized citizens. Not obvious why it stops there either. And with respect to the substance of the speech, yes, these students are being rounded up on the basis of their pro-Palestinian advocacy. But once you accept that the government can revoke somebody's visa on the basis of foreign policy considerations, why stop with pro-Palestinian advocacy? Why not go after people who are pro-Ukraine, or for that matter, pro-Greenland, or pro-Canada? There's really no limit to what the Trump administration could do with this power if the courts endorse it. So, you know, I really- people need to understand that this is not... You know, this is not just a bad policy. This is a policy- it's a kind of policy that ends democracies. Audie Cornish 00:31:02 One of the things I've been most fascinated by in this moment is the idea of the catch and revoke program, where the government uses AI and surveillance techniques to do data scraping and basically just look at people's social media posts, like create a profile just the way they do in any other kind of law enforcement, but using that information to find some of these people that they're deeming a problem. Did this raise, raise any red flags for you as well? Like, is this legal, ethical, a new escalation? Jameel Jaffer 00:31:33 'It absolutely did raise red flags. I mean, we, the Institute that I direct, the Knight Institute, has a case already against a State Department rule. This is several years old now, but a State Department rule that requires visa applicants to submit their social media handles to the State Department when they apply for visas. So if you're applying for a visa from abroad now, you have to list on your visa application. all of the social media platforms that you have an account on and provide the government with your social media handles to facilitate government review of your social media activity. And, you know, the government's theory here is that, well, all of this activity is public. You know, you're posting this stuff publicly. So why shouldn't we, you know, why shouldn' we get to review it or why shouldn''t we review it in evaluating whether you're entitled to a visa. And there is some law on the government side from 50 years ago, like during the Vietnam War, the army used to track anti-war activists by cutting out newspaper articles in which they were quoted or in which their particular advocacy was described. And the army would keep files on advocates. And that was challenged in court. And the court said, you know the army's entitled to read the newspaper and the army is entitled to collect all this you know information about people because it's the information is public and the government is relying now on those cases to justify this kind of surveillance. The problem is that we're living in an age where this kind a surveillance operates on a totally different scale it's one thing to clip newspaper stories and it's another thing you know, to follow somebody, like literally 24-7, on... at every social media platform that they're part of and track all of their speech. Now, I think there are multiple problems with this. One is that this is surveillance on a really grand scale, that if you allow government agents to track what a person says and does on social media kind of on an ongoing basis, it's going to have a real impact on people's willingness to use these tools in the first place. Everybody understands that if you post something publicly, there's the possibility that somebody's going to see it. I mean, that's the point of posting it publicly. But there seems to be like, there is a lot of space between that and a program under which the government is continually surveilling everything you do on social media. So we need some kind of legal framework that distinguishes, you know, the one scenario from the other. But then the other thing is, what's the government looking for here? So with a catch and revoke policy, the way they described is that they're looking for evidence that people are hostile to American values. And if you're empowering relatively low-level government officials to engage in that kind of censorship, I think is the right way to describe it, I mean, surveillance, but ultimately with the point of denying visas to people who engage in particular speech, you're giving them really, really broad authority, discretionary authority. Audie Cornish 00:34:49 'Never mind if it's just AI, right? Right, and then it's- Jameel Jaffer 00:34:51 Right, and then it may not even be a concert official. Audie Cornish 00:34:54 What are you gonna be listening for in the coming days and months when it comes to these students, faculty members who have been detained? When it come to these people who had some kind of legal status or documentation, and they have had that revoked and been detained? Jameel Jaffer 00:35:11 Well, the Knight Institute sued on behalf of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association just last week, challenging the constitutionality of this policy. And we've asked a court to invalidate the policy on First Amendment grounds. But also, I hope we will see a lot more support from the universities than we have so far. If you imagine that the government came to a university like Columbia or Harvard or Georgetown and said we're gonna take some books off your shelves for foreign policy reasons, the universities would be up in arms. They would have been in court ten seconds later. Now the government is coming to them and saying, not we're going to take some books off of your shelves, but we're taking some of your students away. And the universities, I mean, first of all, I think that they haven't had a moral duty to defend their students, but even setting that aside, this is a huge injury to their own autonomy. You know, if there's one thing that universities get to decide, it's who is part of their community. And the government is saying, on foreign policy grounds, you can't have this student. And the university should be doing a lot more than they have been to defend the students and defend their own values. Audie Cornish 00:36:32 Jamil Jaffer is an adjunct professor of law and journalism, and he's also the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute that's at Columbia University. The Assignment is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Madeleine Thompson and Sophia Sanchez, with assistance from Laurie Galaretta. Our senior producer is Matt Martinez. The executive producer of CNN audio is Steve Lickteig, and our technical director is Dan Dzula. We also had support from Dan Bloom, Haley Thomas, Alex Manisseri, Robert Mathers, John Dionora, Lainey Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nicole Pessaru, and Lisa Namerow. I wanna thank you as always for listening to this show. Please hit that follow button and share it with a friend.
Los Angeles Times
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Cornell student protester facing deportation says he's leaving U.S. on his ‘own terms'
A Cornell University student facing deportation after his visa was revoked because of his campus activism said he decided to leave the United States. Momodou Taal, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, had asked a federal court to halt his detention. But he posted on X late Monday that he didn't believe a legal ruling in his favor would guarantee his safety or ability to speak out. 'I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,' Momodou Taal wrote from an unknown location. 'Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.' The government said it revoked Taal's student visa in March because of his involvement in 'disruptive protests,' as well as for disregarding university policies and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students. The Trump administration has attempted to remove noncitizens from the country for participating in campus protests that it deems antisemitic and sympathetic to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Students say the government is targeting them for advocating for Palestinian rights. Taal, a 31-year-old doctoral student in Africana studies at the Ivy League school in Ithaca, N.Y., was suspended last fall after a group of pro-Palestinian activists disrupted a campus career fair. He had been continuing his studies remotely this semester. Taal filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration citing his right to free speech. The lawsuit was withdrawn Monday. In his post, Taal didn't say where he was writing from or where he intended to live next. He didn't immediately respond to a text seeking comment. 'Everything I have tried to do has been in service of affirming the humanity of the Palestinian people, a struggle that will leave a lasting mark on me,' Taal wrote. His attorney, Eric Lee, didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Lee posted on X: 'What is America if people like Momodou are not welcome here?' Hill writes for the Associated Press.
Washington Post
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Cornell student protester facing deportation leaves the US on his 'own terms' after losing faith
A Cornell University student facing deportation after his visa was revoked because of his campus activism said he decided to leave the United States. Momodou Taal, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, had asked a federal court to halt his detention. But he posted on X late Monday that he didn't believe a legal ruling in his favor would guarantee his safety or ability to speak out. 'I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,' Momodou Taal wrote from an unknown location. 'Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.' The government says it revoked Taal's student visa in March because of his involvement in 'disruptive protests,' as well as for disregarding university policies and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students. The Trump administration has attempted to remove noncitizens from the country for participating in campus protests that it deems antisemitic and sympathetic to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Students say the government is targeting them for advocating for Palestinian rights. Taal, a 31-year-old doctoral student in Africana studies at the Ivy League school in Ithaca, New York, was suspended last fall after a group of pro-Palestinian activists disrupted a campus career fair. He had been continuing his studies remotely this semester. Taal filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration citing his right to free speech. The lawsuit was withdrawn Monday. In his post, Taal didn't say where he was writing from or where he intended to live next. He didn't immediately respond to a text seeking comment. 'Everything I have tried to do has been in service of affirming the humanity of the Palestinian people, a struggle that will leave a lasting mark on me,' Taal wrote. His attorney, Eric Lee, didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Lee posted on X : 'What is America if people like Momodou are not welcome here?'
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cornell student protester facing deportation leaves the US on his 'own terms' after losing faith
A Cornell University student facing deportation after his visa was revoked because of his campus activism said he decided to leave the United States. Momodou Taal, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, had asked a federal court to halt his detention. But he posted on X late Monday that he didn't believe a legal ruling in his favor would guarantee his safety or ability to speak out. 'I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,' Momodou Taal wrote from an unknown location. 'Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.' The government says it revoked Taal's student visa in March because of his involvement in 'disruptive protests,' as well as for disregarding university policies and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students. The Trump administration has attempted to remove noncitizens from the country for participating in campus protests that it deems antisemitic and sympathetic to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Students say the government is targeting them for advocating for Palestinian rights. Taal, a 31-year-old doctoral student in Africana studies at the Ivy League school in Ithaca, New York, was suspended last fall after a group of pro-Palestinian activists disrupted a campus career fair. He had been continuing his studies remotely this semester. Taal filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration citing his right to free speech. The lawsuit was withdrawn Monday. In his post, Taal didn't say where he was writing from or where he intended to live next. He didn't immediately respond to a text seeking comment. 'Everything I have tried to do has been in service of affirming the humanity of the Palestinian people, a struggle that will leave a lasting mark on me,' Taal wrote. His attorney, Eric Lee, didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Lee posted on X: 'What is America if people like Momodou are not welcome here?'
