On Friday, the Department of Justice asked a student from the University of Cornell to be demanding the Trump administration after helping to lead the protests of the campus last year to be delivered to the immigration authorities, according to a new judicial presentation.
Lawyers for Momodou Taal, Ph.D. Student who is the head of the United States visa and a double citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, said in judicial documents that he received an email from a lawyer from the Department of Justice with a notice, which begins the deportation process, and an invitation to deliver to the application of immigration and customs of the United States.
The email did not specify when the Department of Justice expects TAL to surrender to the immigration authorities.
Eric Lee, one of Taal’s lawyers, told NBC News on Saturday that in the days before email, unidentified authorities appeared outside the Taal Student Apartment building and began asking other residents about him. The building staff then asked the authorities to leave, Lee said.
Lee said the court asked the Department of Justice to explain his actions at 5 pm on Saturday.
The Department of Justice did not immediately answer a request for comments or questions about which agency looked for Taal at home.
The University of Cornell did not respond immediately to the request for comments from NBC News. The National Security Department also did not respond.
Last weekend, Taal and two American citizens challenged the executive orders of the Trump administration to “combat anti -Semitism” on university campuses and expel foreign citizens that the administration says they represent national security threats.
Taal, 31, and other plaintiffs have argued that orders violate the rights of expression of international students and academics who protest or express their support for the Palestinians in Gaza.
The case of Taal occurs in the midst of a broader effort of the Trump administration to exercise leverage in the affairs of private institutions of higher education.
Earlier this month, the Administration alarmed many observers when immigration officials arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student from Columbia University who directed similar protests at school last year. Khalil is fighting his deportation while he is arrested in Louisiana. Lee said Kahlil’s arrest increased Taal’s concerns for being arrested by immigration authorities and helped cause his demand.
The Trump administration has cited a dark national security clause in the immigration and nationality law of 1952 to justify Khalil’s apprehension. The provision allows the Secretary of State to deport non -citizens if the secretary determines that his presence in the United States could negatively affect foreign policy.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said in X earlier this month that the department would revoke visas and green cards of non -citizens who claim to support Hamas.
Immigration officials arrested a second student of Columbia, Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian of the West Bank who, according to the officials, surpassed his student visa. A third student of Columbia, the national Ranjani Srinivasan, fled to Canada after his student visa was revoked. Srinivasan said that he did not participate in the protests of the last spring campus.
A doctor and professor at Brown University was deported this month after trying to return to the United States from a trip to Lebanon. National Security officials said Monday that the professor told them that he attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the murdered leader of Iran-back Hezbollah.
More recently, a graduated student who taught at the University of Georgetown with a student visa was arrested this week.
The Trump administration also left after the universities themselves in retaliation for protests on university campuses last year.
On March 7, the Administration announced that it was stripping Columbia, which was the epicenter of the protests, of $ 400 million in federal subsidies. This week, the White House said in a statement that he was stopping $ 175 million in federal funds for the University of Pennsylvania for allowing a transgender swimmer to compete in his female team.
In an effort to begin negotiations to restore federal funds, Columbia agreed on Friday the demands described by the Trump administration.
The university will now prohibit students using masks in protests in most cases, modifying their admission process, hiring 36 new security officers of the campus, who, unlike previous security officers, will have the ability to arrest students and appoint a new vice -presence to supervise the Department of Studies of the Middle East, Asia of the South and Africa.
The movements have caused some new protests and have expressed concerns throughout the country about the infraction of the federal government in freedom of expression. Some students and professors of Columbia told NBC News in the last weeks that they fear that the Government will go after them if they speak.
The protests are scheduled to resume in Columbia on Monday.
