A graduate student from the University of Minnesota was arrested by immigration agents and customs compliance with the United States on Thursday at a residence outside the campus, the school said in a statement.
Friday statement: signed by President Rebecca Cunningham, vice president of Student Affairs, Calvin Phillips and Vice President of Equity and Diversity, Mercedes RamÃrez Fernández, described the situation “deeply worrying”. The international student is registered on the Twin Cities campus, the school said.
The university said it had no more information or more details about the situation. He also said he had no prior knowledge that the arrest was happening and did not share any information with federal agents in advance.
The school did not launch the student’s name. The student’s nationality and type and visa status were not available.
Neither ICE nor the National Security Department responded to comments requests on Saturday night.
“It is important to keep in mind that our public security departments of the Campus, including the UMPD, do not enforce federal immigration laws, and our officials do not ask about the immigration status of an individual,” said UMN statement. “Your approach remains in public security, foster trust and maintain solid relationships throughout the university community.”
The governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, said Friday that he had been in contact with DHS to obtain information, adding that he would share more when he could.
“The University of Minnesota is an international destination for education and research. We have any number of students studying here with visas, and we need answers,” Walz said in X.
The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, described the arrest of the “deeply worrying” student in a publication about X.
“Educational environments must be places where all students can focus on learning and growing without fear,” Frey said.
This last arrest occurs immediately after other arrests of international students from American universities.
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student from Columbia University who directed student protests at the New York School La Primavera last, was arrested by federal immigration agents earlier this month and told him that his student visa was being revoked.
Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the United States, was accused of supporting Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. A lawyer rejected the claim, saying that there is no evidence that Khalil gives any kind support to a terrorist organization.
Khalil is arrested for federal custody in Louisiana after the United States district judge, Jesse M. Furman, ruled that he cannot be deported “to preserve the jurisdiction of the court”, since he weighs a presentation that challenges his arrest and planned deportation.
Rumeysa Ozturb, a postgraduate student at the University of Tufts who is a Turkish citizen in the United States, so his lawyer said it was a valid student visa, he was similarly arrested by federal immigration agents on Tuesday and is also arrested in Louisiana. His arrest was captured in a video, with Ozturb’s lawyer saying that he was going to meet friends for Ifar, a meal that breaks the day quickly observed by Muslims during Ramadan, when he was arrested.
A judicial order on Friday blocked OzTurk deportation, while the United States district judge, Denise Casper, determines whether he has jurisdiction on the case.
An Iranian doctoral student at the University of Alabama, Alireza Doroudi, and a Russian medical researcher at Harvard University, Kseniia Petrova, were also arrested by immigration agents this week.
