The U.S. is Disappearing Students for Opposing Genocide
Students are risking their education and careers to stand up for humanity. Everyone has a role to play in supporting them and demanding freedom for Palestinians.
From the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU):
The US government is disappearing students for opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza—but most Americans agree with the students.
Students across the US have been protesting for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and to stop their taxes and tuition from being used to fund Israel’s violence.
As one of the US’s largest ever student movements, they’re on the right side of history.
As the Trump administration targets, abducts, and smears student protestors with baseless claims, remember: the majority of Americans agree with the students.
Over half of all Americans (54%) support ending US weapons to Israel while it blocks all humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Over 70% of Americans support a permanent ceasefire.
A majority of Americans think it should be legal to protest Israel's actions in Gaza.
The Trump administration is criminalizing protest and dissent – against the will of the people.
Millions of Americans have protested, called their reps, and spoken out in their communities for Palestinian freedom.
Like the student protesters, they don’t want their taxes paying for the bombs Israel uses to kill thousands of Palestinian children and families.
The US government is repressing students in alarming, authoritarian ways for demanding the same things most Americans want.
The students' demands are popular, reasonable, and righteous.
Simply put: The majority of Americans don’t want their tax dollars to be spent on bombs for Israel to kill Palestinian children and families. They want that money invested back into their own communities. And they want to see an end to Israel’s violence, once and for all.
Students are risking their education and careers to stand up for humanity. Everyone has a role to play in supporting them and demanding freedom for Palestinians.
From DropSite News: List of the Targeted
The Trump administration is attempting to deport non-citizens due to their perceived pro-Palestinian support or criticism of U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Here’s an updated list of those known to have been targeted by the U.S. government:
1. Mahmoud Khalil (Targeted: March 8, 2025)
Khalil, a 30-year-old Syrian-born Algerian citizen and Columbia University graduate student (master’s in international affairs), was arrested on March 8, 2025, at his Manhattan apartment. He’s detained at the ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana, facing deportation after the Trump administration accused him of risking “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,” per a DHS document cited by The Guardian. On March 23, DHS filed additional claims, alleging he “withheld that he worked for [UNRWA]” and “failed to disclose continuing employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut” on his 2024 green card application, per Reuters. In Newark federal court on March 28, Judge Michael Farbiarz said he’d rule “as quickly as I can” on jurisdiction and bail, leaving Khalil in custody pending a decision.
2. Dr. Rasha Alawieh (Targeted: March 10, 2025)
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a 34-year-old Lebanese kidney transplant specialist set to join Brown University, was deported on March 10, 2025, upon re-entry from Lebanon. DHS accused her of supporting ex-Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, claiming photos on her phone showed “support for a terrorist figure,” per her lawyer’s statement to CNN. Despite a judge’s order against removal, she’s now in Lebanon, with her legal team fighting to reverse the deportation.
3. Yunseo Chung (Targeted: March 10, 2025)
Yunseo Chung, a Korean-American Columbia University undergrad studying political science, was targeted after her March 10, 2025, arrest at a Barnard sit-in. She’s not detained—a judge barred ICE from holding her—after DHS accused her of “concerning conduct likely to adversely affect U.S. foreign policy,” per a notice to appear cited by Newsday, tied to a misdemeanor from pro-Palestinian protests. Her legal challenge, arguing free speech as a longtime resident, continues without a deportation date.
4. Leqaa Kordia (Targeted: March 15, 2025)
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank was detained on March 15, 2025 in the Newark NJ field office. She was previously arrested for her participation in the protests. Her visa was terminated in January 2022 for lack of attendance, officials said. Leqaa is currently at an ICE center in Alvarado, Texas, with ICE alleging she “overstayed her visa and engaged in activities threatening public safety,” per an AP statement, linked to protest presence. No hearing updates exist; she remains in custody as deportation looms.
5. Momodou Taal (Targeted: March 17, 2025)
Momodou Taal, a 31-year-old UK-Gambian doctoral student in Africana studies at Cornell, was briefly detained on March 17, 2025, after his visa was revoked over campus protests. He’s free, suing Trump after ICE claimed he “engaged in disruptive protests violating visa terms,” per a Cornell Sun report. His federal case, asserting free speech, has a hearing set for March 31; he’s not currently detained.
6. Badar Khan Suri (Targeted: March 19, 2025)
Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University studying peace and conflict, was arrested on March 19, 2025, in Virginia and is detained in Jena, Louisiana. DHS accused him of “spreading Hamas propaganda” and "close connections to a known or suspected terrorist” per a March 20 ICE filing cited by NBC News. His lawyers seek release, arguing no evidence exists; his case remains unresolved.
7. Ranjani Srinivasan (Targeted: March 20, 2025)
Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia studying sociology, fled the U.S. on March 20, 2025, after ICE searched her residence. The State Department revoked her visa, alleging she “advocated violence and terrorism” through pro-Palestinian views, per a DHS notice quoted by The New York Times—she denied organizing protests. Self-deported to Canada, her case is closed unless she returns.
8. Rumeysa Ozturk (Targeted: March 25, 2025)
Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish doctoral student at Tufts studying child development, was detained on March 25, 2025, in Massachusetts and transferred to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile. DHS accused her of “supporting Hamas,” it appears through a 2024 Tufts Daily op-ed where she argued for divestment from Israeli genocide and the “equal humanity and dignity of all people.” A federal judge’s order against moving her out of the state was ignored; her team demands release, with a government response due March 31.
9. Alireza Doroudi (Targeted: March 25, 2025)
Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian doctoral student at the University of Alabama studying mechanical engineering, was detained on March 25, 2025, in Alabama, awaiting transfer to Jena, Louisiana. DHS accused him of posing “significant national security concerns,” per a March 25 ICE statement to Reuters, after revoking his visa in 2023—his lawyer says he stayed legal. He’s in custody, with deportation pending unless overturned; no hearing date is set.
Legal status of each:
1. Mahmoud Khalil - Columbia University
•Legal Status: Legal Permanent Resident (LPR). He’s a green card holder, married to a U.S. citizen, but ICE detained him over alleged ties to pro-Palestinian groups.
2. Ranjani Srinivasan - Columbia University (also NYU adjunct)
•Legal Status: Student Visa (F-1). Her visa was revoked for “advocating violence and terrorism,” per the administration; she self-deported to Canada.
3. Yunseo Chung - Columbia University
•Legal Status: Legal Permanent Resident (LPR). Moved from South Korea as a child, targeted for deportation after a protest arrest, but a court order has paused ICE action.
4. Badar Khan Suri - Georgetown University
•Legal Status: Exchange Visitor Visa (J-1). An Indian postdoctoral fellow, detained by ICE for alleged Hamas propaganda; he’s fighting deportation from a Louisiana facility.
5. Momodou Taal - Cornell University
•Legal Status: Student Visa (F-1). Dual UK/Gambian citizen, visa revoked for “disruptive protests”; he’s challenging it in court and hasn’t been detained yet.
6. Rumeysa Ozturk - Tufts University
•Legal Status: Student Visa (F-1). Turkish doctoral student and Fulbright scholar, detained by ICE after an anti-Israel op-ed; held since March 25, 2025.
7. Alireza Doroudi - University of Alabama
•Legal Status: Student Visa (F-1). Iranian Ph.D. student, detained for “national security concerns” after his visa was revoked in 2023, though he’d maintained student status.
8. Leqaa Kordia - Columbia University (not officially enrolled)
•Legal Status: Expired Student Visa (F-1). Palestinian from the West Bank, detained for overstaying her visa (expired 2022) after protest involvement; held in Texas.
9. Rasha Alawieh - Brown University
•Legal Status: Work Visa (H-1B). Lebanese doctor and professor, deported March 14, 2025, despite a valid visa, after admitting to attending Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral; her lawyer is fighting to reverse it.
From Mondoweiss: ‘Every arrest that ICE has made is a political one’: How immigrant rights activists are fighting attacks on the Palestine movement
“Yes this is about Palestine, and also this is not about Palestine,” Torres said in a speech to the crowd. “This is about this administration taking the issue that they believe is the least sympathetic and making an example out of the people that they arrest so that they can dehumanize the issue, they can dehumanize the actors, they can dehumanize the people standing up as a means of going after every single one of us.”
Speaking with Mondoweiss, Torres elaborated on how ICE routinely targets activists.
“Every arrest that ICE has made is a political one. Mahmoud Khalil’s case has grabbed national attention for very valid reasons, and it’s time for us to have this conversation with a larger audience,” Torres said. “ICE is a rogue agency that was created in a post-9/11 nationalist fervor.”
From The Guardian: Don’t just blame Trump – Democrats paved the way for this campus crackdown
The “America First” president seems poised to successfully suppress criticism of a foreign country and its policies nationwide under the auspices of fighting antisemitism – a scourge that, while very real and pernicious, is demonstrably less pronounced or accepted on college and university campuses than almost anywhere else in American society. Antisemitism is certainly far less accepted at Columbia than, say, in the GOP, where our sitting president casually decreed that Chuck Schumer is not Jewish any more because he doesn’t accept all of Trump’s policies – and proceeded to call the Senate minority leader “Palestinian” (another semitic population) as a slur.
This is not a partisan political point. Virtually every aspect of the Trump administration’s posture rests on track laid by the Biden administration and the Democratic party.
For instance, the reason Trump could plausibly refer to Gaza a “demolition site” is because, for more than a year prior to his re-election, his Democratic predecessor (urged on by Schumer and others) supplied unlimited weapons to Israel to carry out a campaign of destruction that has few modern equivalents – a campaign that was not just restricted to Gaza, but also extended to the West Bank, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. Biden’s planned successor, Kamala Harris, and her surrogates repeatedly stressed to voters that these policies would continue largely unchanged under her watch.
Even before Trump had a chance to weigh in, Joe Biden immediately characterized the protests at Columbia as “antisemitic” and declared that “order must prevail” on college campuses. Democratic lawmakers put aggressive pressure on the former Columbia University president Minouche Shafik to crush the protests. She ultimately did so with the assistance of New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams (who justified his clampdown via evidence-free statements that the protests were driven primarily by “outside agitators”). Trump celebrated the pictures and videos of students getting roughed up by the NYPDand, upon Trump’s reclaiming the White House, the justice department interceded on behalf of Adams – making his criminal investigation go away in apparent exchange for the mayor adopting a more aggressive posture on immigration – a move that critics claim is a quid pro quo.
In a similar vein, it was Biden who enshrined the IHRA definition of antisemitism into federal guidance, despite the definition’s author repeatedly describing it as a “travesty” to use this definition to regulate speech and behavior. Building on Biden’s introduction, Trump is poised to sign a bill that would implement this same definition into federal anti-discrimination law – and in the meantime, he’s insisting Columbia and other schools adopt this definition in their own codes of conduct. NYU and Harvard have already taken this step, overriding concerns by civil rights and civil liberties organizations – from the ACLU, to Fire and the AAUP, to Israeli civil rights groups – who stressed that IHRA’s definition is extremely vague and provides strong leeway for institutional stakeholders to censor most critical discussion of Israel, Zionism or Judaism more broadly, by Jews and non-Jews alike.
Likewise, before Trump called upon Columbia to put its Middle East studies programs into receivership, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, took the extraordinary step of demanding that the City University of New York eliminate a job posting for scholars who study Palestine. This is the same type of overreach Trump is exercising at Columbia – politicians setting the agenda for what can be taught and who can be hired – justified on the same grounds.
The Democrats will not save colleges and universities. They have been key partners and pioneers for all of the actions currently being undertaken by the Trump administration in this domain.
It's irrelevant what people think. If you're not free to protest genocide, freedom and human rights are meaningless.
Gee. For folks getting “disappeared” you sure have a lot of information about them.