Trump’s Deportations Come to Campus

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Report Trump’s Deportations Come to Campus Palestine has taken center stage in the U.S. leader’s crackdown on students. By Christina Lu , an energy and environment reporter at Foreign Policy . People gather outside of a New York court to protest the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil at Foley Square in New York City. People gather outside of a New York court to protest the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil at Foley Square in New York City on March 12. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now | Log In Human Rights United States Christina Lu March 21, 2025, 3:17 PM Comment icon View Comments ( 0 ) The Trump administration appears to be ramping up efforts to deport foreign-born students who are in the United States legally but whom authorities accuse of opposing U.S. foreign policy— without offering any evidence. Trump’s Second Term Ongoing reports and analysis As of Friday morning, U.S. officials have now moved to deport two such individuals. On March 8, immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States who is of Palestinian descent and was a graduate student at Columbia University until December and a prominent figure in the school’s student protests against the war in Gaza. The Trump administration appears to be ramping up efforts to deport foreign-born students who are in the United States legally but whom authorities accuse of opposing U.S. foreign policy— without offering any evidence. Trump’s Second Term Ongoing reports and analysis As of Friday morning, U.S. officials have now moved to deport two such individuals. On March 8, immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States who is of Palestinian descent and was a graduate student at Columbia University until December and a prominent figure in the school’s student protests against the war in Gaza. Then on Monday, immigration officials arrested Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow and Indian national who is in the United States on a student visa . In a post on X, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson accused Suri of promoting Hamas propaganda and having ties to a senior Hamas advisor. However, his lawyer has said that Suri was targeted because of his wife’s Palestinian heritage , and Georgetown has said it has not received a reason for his detention and is not aware of any illegal activity. Neither Khalil nor Suri has been charged with a crime, according to their respective lawyers . Instead, in both cases Trump administration officials have cited an obscure and rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that empowers the secretary of state to deport any noncitizen whose continued presence in the United States, they believe, “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” The moves have set the stage for fierce legal battles and roiled universities, some of which are already wrestling with the Trump administration’s push to bind hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to its own vision for American universities. Trump’s deportation moves have also sparked outrage and alarm over free speech, particularly in universities and over Israel and Gaza, as the administration appears to be targeting individuals who have expressed criticism of the Israeli government or support for the Palestinian cause. “Trump has made no effort to disguise the fact that the arrests of academics like Suri and Mahmoud Khalil is intended to have a chilling effect and discourage the free expression of political views which Trump dislikes,” Democratic Virginia Rep. Don Beyer said in a statement . “In both cases, the administration has punished speech with frightening, extreme measures that, if it happened in another country, most of us would not hesitate to call ‘authoritarianism,’” said Beyer, who added that the arrest of Suri—Beyer’s constituent—“is a clear violation of his constitutional rights.” Yet even with these legal challenges, Khalil and Suri’s arrests may be just the start of a broader deportation crackdown against foreign-born students or academics who express or are tied to pro-Palestinian activism —even if those people are in the country legally. Campus protests that swept the country last year sparked a national debate over U.S. support for Israel, free speech on university campuses, and antisemitism —issues that Trump seized upon in his presidential campaign. “We are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all,” Trump said in one campaign video, adding that he would reclaim “our once-great educational institutions from the radical left.” “We are going to have real education in America,” he declared. Now in office, Trump has vowed to move full-speed ahead with his deportations. After Khalil’s arrest, Trump labeled him a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” in a post on Truth Social and declared that “this is the first arrest of many to come.” Many of the student arrests so far have been tied to the Columbia University protests. Also in March, Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia graduate student, fled to Canada after her student visa was revoked and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up at her apartment. Srinivasan had shared social media posts about human rights violations in Gaza and attended a handful of protests, according to her lawyers, and was briefly detained at another protest that she said she was not participating in. U.S. officials have also arrested Leqaa Kordia—a Palestinian from the West Bank who was previously arrested during the Columbia University protests—for overstaying a student visa. Read More A person holds up a sign at a protest that reads: “Keep Your [picture of hands] OFF The Students” Trump’s War on Universities Is More Dangerous Than You Think What his attack on Columbia means for America’s entire democratic system. Analysis | Howard W. French A protester wears the university’s disciplinary warning covered over by support for Palestinians in Gaza at Columbia University in New York City. The Columbia Protests and the Economics of Divestment What would meeting the demands of pro-Palestinian protesters cost the university? Insider | Cameron Abadi , Adam Tooze People with Free Palestine posters walk past a campus gate that reads “PRESENTED BY THE CLASS OF 1929” What Columbia’s Protests Reveal About America Some politicians have called student protesters a threat. Instead, they are providing us all with an education in democracy. Analysis | Howard W. French “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump declared in his post on Truth Social. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country—never to return again.” That pledge was echoed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” he said in a post on X . Sign up for Editors’ Picks A curated selection of FP’s must-read stories. Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time. Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up You’re on the list! More ways to stay updated on global news: FP Live Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up World Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up China Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up South Asia Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up Situation Report Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up View All Newsletters In an interview with NPR last week, DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar accused Khalil of “promoting this antisemitism activity” and claimed that his visa was revoked “for supporting a terrorist type organization.” But when asked, Edgar did not explain exactly what conduct Khalil engaged in to warrant his arrest. “I think you can see it on TV, right?” Edgar said . “We’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.” “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent,” Khalil said in a letter published in the Guardian , which was dictated to family and friends from a detention facility in Louisiana. “Visa holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.” In Suri’s case, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has accused the Georgetown researcher of “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” without offering any evidence. Suri has no criminal record and denies McLaughlin’s allegations, according to his lawyer . Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a master’s student at Georgetown University and a U.S. citizen . Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef—Suri’s father-in-law—is a former advisor to Hamas’s assassinated top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, according to the New York Times . After leaving his post in the Hamas-run government more than a decade ago, the Times reported, Yousef has publicly questioned Hamas’s rationale for its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Yousef has said that Suri has not engaged in any “ political activism .” “It’s good that there is a prisoner deal, but it did not require all this bloodshed and destruction,” Yousef said in a phone interview with the Times . “Oct. 7, in my opinion, was a terrible error.” In a petition for Suri’s release filed by his wife, she said Yousef, her father, had previously served as a political advisor to the prime minister of Gaza and as the deputy of foreign affairs in Gaza. After leaving the Gaza government in 2010, she wrote, in 2011 he started the House of Wisdom “to encourage peace and conflict resolution in Gaza.” He is still at the House of Wisdom and is an international relations professor at the Islamic University of Gaza. Saleh also noted in her petition that she herself had previously worked as a translator in the Hamas-run Foreign Ministry of Gaza around 2011. She also wrote that prior to the war in Gaza, she “often worked as a freelance journalist for Middle Eastern newspapers and media outlets, reporting on politics in Palestine and India.” After Saleh began sharing social media posts on what was unfolding in Gaza in the wake of Oct. 7, the couple was accused of having “ties to Hamas,” faced online attacks, and received threatening social media messages, she wrote in her petition. “I learned that certain websites online had targeted me personally because of my father’s former role in the Gaza government, and because of my social media posts,” she wrote. “Multiple articles were published about me and my family, and eventually about my husband.” After Suri’s arrest, she added, “I feel completely unsafe and can’t stop looking at the door, terrified that someone else will come and take me and the children away as well.” This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration . Follow along here . Christina Lu is an energy and environment reporter at Foreign Policy . X: @christinafei Read More On Education | Gaza | Human Rights | Israel | Migration and Immigration | Palestine | United States Join the Conversation Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription. Already a subscriber? Log In . Subscribe Subscribe View 0 Comments Join the Conversation Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now. Subscribe Subscribe Not your account? Log out View 0 Comments Join the Conversation Please follow our comment guidelines , stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs. You are commenting as . Change your username | Log out Change your username: Username I agree to abide by FP’s comment guidelines . (Required) Confirm CANCEL Confirm your username to get started. 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