Speaker 1: Als media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Today
Speaker 2: I'm joined by James Stout. This episode is going to
Speaker 2: be about ICE actions against students, scholars, and professors around
Speaker 2: the country and this wave of deportations targeting people engaged
Speaker 2: in pro Palestine speech protest, as well as some individuals
Speaker 2: who have been roped up in this new wave of
Speaker 2: deportations who have not publicly engaged in Palestine activism. Let's
Speaker 2: start on the evening of Saturday, March eighth, Mahmoud Khalil
Speaker 2: and his wife were returning home from dinner when plain
Speaker 2: clothesed ICE agents followed the couple into their campus apartment
Speaker 2: building at Columbia University. A man wearing a Marvel graphic
Speaker 2: tea arrested Khalil for then unknown reasons and threatened to
Speaker 2: arrest Khalil's wife, who is eight months pregnant and an
Speaker 2: American citizen. When Khalil's wife brought his green card from
Speaker 2: their apartment, says, one of the ICE agents placed a
Speaker 2: phone call informing someone Khalil was a permanent resident, to
Speaker 2: which the person on the phone replied, let's bring him
Speaker 2: in any way.
Speaker 1: You've got to be under arrest.
Speaker 3: Turn around, around, turn around.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, he's not resisting phone. Okay, you.
Speaker 3: Guys really don't need to be doing.
Speaker 2: All of that. During the arrest, Khalil's lawyer, Amy Greer,
Speaker 2: spoke in the phone with one of the ICE agents
Speaker 2: who said that they were acting on State Department orders
Speaker 2: to revoke Khalil's student visa. Greer reiterated to the agents
Speaker 2: that Khalil was in fact a permanent resident with a
Speaker 2: green card, but the ICE agent just responded by saying
Speaker 2: they were revoking the green card instead. Khalil's a graduate
Speaker 2: student who has been studying at Columbia for over two years.
Speaker 2: Last year, Khalil emerged as a visible figure in the
Speaker 2: college encampment protests, becoming a public spokesperson and a lead
Speaker 2: negotiator on behalf of Columbia University apartheid divest. Though never
Speaker 2: being arrested, Khalil faced harassment from right wing Zionist docsing
Speaker 2: campaigns calling for his deportation, and when ICE did come
Speaker 2: for Khalil, disappearing him to a detention facility in Louisiana
Speaker 2: and cutting him off from communication with his wife and lawyer.
Speaker 2: Throughout all of this, he was not charged with any crime. Instead,
Speaker 2: Ice in the State Department are using a rarely used
Speaker 2: Cold War era immigration statute that gives the Secretary of
Speaker 2: State the power to exclude or deport any non citizen
Speaker 2: of the United States if there are quote reasonable grounds
Speaker 2: to believe that in individual's entry, proposed activities, presence, or
Speaker 2: activities in the United States would have quote potentially serious
Speaker 2: adverse foreign policy consequences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the one that like I remember at
Speaker 3: the time, you and I were discussing this, like in
Speaker 3: our group chat, and we were trying to work out
Speaker 3: like how the Secretary of State could be revoking a
Speaker 3: green card, like yeah, and I think you found this,
Speaker 3: so you found it somewhere in it. The Trump administration
Speaker 3: has been very very good at finding very obscure pieces
Speaker 3: of law that it can wheeled against migrants. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: no one in twenty sixteen would have foreseen what they
Speaker 3: did with Title forty two, which is a public health law,
Speaker 3: and they're doing something similar here. I mean, they may
Speaker 3: have spent the last four years looking for these things,
Speaker 3: es cecially when the campus protests began, but like, this
Speaker 3: is entirely unprecedented as far as some were.
Speaker 2: And right if this happened like we discussed how this
Speaker 2: case was probably going to be used as a testing
Speaker 2: ground for employing these tactics on a more widespread scale,
Speaker 2: creating legal precedent, and sure enough, Khalil's case was not
Speaker 2: an outlier. This was just the first public instance of
Speaker 2: the Trump administrations directed targeting of students they believed to
Speaker 2: be associated with protests against Israel and its actions in Gaza,
Speaker 2: and this wave of actions by ICE had actually already
Speaker 2: begun before Khalil's arrest. The day before Khalil was arrested,
Speaker 2: ICE agents knocked on the door of PhD student Rajani
Speaker 2: Shrini Vassen, who a few days prior was suddenly notified
Speaker 2: that her student visa had been revoked. When ICE agents knocked,
Speaker 2: she did not answer the door. The next day, I
Speaker 2: showed up again to her Columbia University apartment. Trinavassen was
Speaker 2: not home, but upon hearing of Khalil's arrest just a
Speaker 2: few hours later, she decided to quickly collect some belongings
Speaker 2: and flee to Canada. Five days later, when ICE returned
Speaker 2: to her residence, but this time with a warrant, Trinavassen
Speaker 2: was already gone. Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome praised this
Speaker 2: as quote unquote self deportation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they talk about this a lot, Like self deportation
Speaker 3: is definitely one of their goals. They talked about it
Speaker 3: before Trump even came into power. Like that's what we're
Speaker 3: seeing a lot of these spectacle raids and and like
Speaker 3: spectacle deportations gear tactics. Yeah, yeah, exactly the desires that
Speaker 3: people leave. Is she a Canadian citizen or like I.
Speaker 2: Don't believe so, No, Okay, it was just the fastest
Speaker 2: flight from LaGuardia out of the country, out of like,
Speaker 2: you know, the closest, the closest she could be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder what her immigration states is in Canada now.
Speaker 2: She is currently figuring this whole situation out still, Okay,
Speaker 2: navigating her legal options both in Canada and the States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'll be interesting too to see what Canada can
Speaker 3: offer her. And like, I don't think the Trump administration
Speaker 3: would go after like having her extradited back because if
Speaker 3: she says she's not accused of a crime and then
Speaker 3: they've kind of got what they wanted. It'll be interesting
Speaker 3: to follow that.
Speaker 2: There is no need for extradition because none of the
Speaker 2: people that were talking about today were choosed of any crime.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with the other cases of quote unquote like self deportation,
Speaker 3: one of the issues is people have had their passport
Speaker 3: seized and held, like like lots of Venice vigrants, so
Speaker 3: they actually can't or it would be very difficult for
Speaker 3: them to like just get on a fly and leave.
Speaker 2: Which I think is in part why she made the
Speaker 2: decision to get out when she could.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: DHS claimed in a statement that Trina Vasan advocated violence
Speaker 2: and was quote involved in activities supporting hamas a terrorist
Speaker 2: organization unquote. ICE is targeting her seemingly stems from being
Speaker 2: mass arrested while trying to return to her apartment from
Speaker 2: a picnic with friends on the same day as the
Speaker 2: Hamilton Hill occupation. She couldn't get home and was caught
Speaker 2: up in the crowd and was arrested among one hundred
Speaker 2: other people. She received two summons for obstructing traffic and
Speaker 2: failure to disperse, but her case was quickly dismissed. Homeland
Speaker 2: Security claims that failing to declare these two summons is
Speaker 2: what caused her visa to be revoked. Okay, interesting, that
Speaker 2: same week ICE went after another Green card holder at Columbia,
Speaker 2: a twenty one year old student named Yung Sam How. Chung,
Speaker 2: a permanent resident who immigrated to the United States from
Speaker 2: South Korea with her family when she was seven. On
Speaker 2: March ninth, ICE agents visited her parents' home looking for Chung,
Speaker 2: and that day she received an odd text message, reading, Hi, Yunsau,
Speaker 2: This is Audrey from the police. My job is to
Speaker 2: reach out to you and see if you have any
Speaker 2: questions about your recent arrest and the process going forward.
Speaker 2: When are you available for a phone call unquote. This
Speaker 2: recent arrest was allegedly in reference to being detained, among
Speaker 2: others at a sit in protest at Bernard College on
Speaker 2: March fifth. Chung was charged and then released with misdemeanor obstruction.
Speaker 2: After receiving that sketchy text message, Chung got an email
Speaker 2: from Columbia Public Safety reading quote, the US Attorney's Office
Speaker 2: for the Southern District of New York has asked us
Speaker 2: to inform you that Homeland Security Investigation agents are seeking
Speaker 2: to make contact with you in connection with an administrative
Speaker 2: warrant for your arrest. Consistent with universities practice, we wanted
Speaker 2: to share this information and their request with you. If
Speaker 2: you are represented by counsel, it may make sense for
Speaker 2: your lawyer to speak directly with DHS unquote. Chung's lawyer
Speaker 2: decided to call quote unquote to Audrey from the police,
Speaker 2: who revealed that she was actually an HSI agent and
Speaker 2: that the State Department was revoking Miss Chung's residency status. Now,
Speaker 2: rather than opting for self deportation or turning herself into
Speaker 2: immigration authorities, Chung decided to go into hiding and fight
Speaker 2: the deportation in the courts while trying to evade ised attention.
Speaker 2: When Ice failed to locate her, they enlisted the help
Speaker 2: of federal prosecutors. To quote from the New York Times quote,
Speaker 2: on March tenth, Perry Carboni, a high ranking lawyer in
Speaker 2: the Federal Prosecutor's office, told Miss Amaud, miss Chung's attorney,
Speaker 2: that the Secretary of State, mister Rubio, had revoked Miss
Speaker 2: Chung's visa. Miss amd responded that Miss Chung was not
Speaker 2: in the country on a visa and was a permanent resident,
Speaker 2: according to the lawsuit. Mister Carboni responded that mister Rubio
Speaker 2: had quote revoked that as well, unquote. Yeah, so this
Speaker 2: is the exact same language we saw with Khalil, and
Speaker 2: it displays a general uncaring towards who they are actually
Speaker 2: targeting and what their actual legal status is in the
Speaker 2: United States. They think they're going after people's student visas,
Speaker 2: but when it turns out they have green cards, that
Speaker 2: doesn't stop them. They still continue to do it anyway.
Speaker 2: On March thirteenth, Ice searched two residences on campus with warrants,
Speaker 2: citing a statute for harboring non citizens, but Chung was
Speaker 2: nowhere to be found. Like Khalil, the Trump administration is
Speaker 2: arguing that her presence of the United States hinders the
Speaker 2: administration's foreign policy agenda. But her lawyers note that Chung
Speaker 2: was not, by any means a quote unquote movement leader.
Speaker 2: She was simply one of hundreds of students who joined
Speaker 2: in nationwide protests against Israel's actions in Gaza. Her lawyer's
Speaker 2: right quote, Miss Chung has not made public statements to
Speaker 2: the press or otherwise assumed a high profile role in
Speaker 2: these protests. She was rather one of a large group
Speaker 2: of college students raising, expressing, and discussing shared concerns unquote.
Speaker 2: I had previously faced university disciplinary process which found she
Speaker 2: was not in violation of any university policy related to protests.
Speaker 2: Last year, Chung's lawyers filed a lawsuit to prevent her deportation,
Speaker 2: claiming that ICE's actions against Chung are illegal and unconstitutional.
Speaker 2: This lawsuit reads, quote, Officials at the highest echelon's government
Speaker 2: are attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to
Speaker 2: suppress speech that they dislike, including Miss Chung's speech. ICE's
Speaker 2: shocking actions against Miss Chung form part of a larger
Speaker 2: pattern of attempted US government repression of constitutionally protected protest
Speaker 2: activity and other forms of speech unquote. On March twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order halting efforts
Speaker 2: from ICE to detain or relocate Chung. The judge said
Speaker 2: that the government produced quote nothing in the record to
Speaker 2: indicate Chung is a danger to the community or a
Speaker 2: quote unquote foreign policy risk, or that she was in
Speaker 2: any communication with terrorist organizations. The judge said that there
Speaker 2: would be quote no trip to Louisiana here unquote. This
Speaker 2: is in reference to the big iceed attention facility in Louisiana.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this ad break, Okay. We're
Speaker 2: back now. Although Chung has at least temporarily halted ICE's
Speaker 2: efforts to detain or deporter, not all legal recourses have
Speaker 2: proven successful. This week, a US district judge declined a
Speaker 2: request to block the deportation of Cornell's student Mamadou Tall
Speaker 2: after the State Department revoked his visa on March thirty first,
Speaker 2: Tall released a statement, quote, given what we have seen
Speaker 2: across the United States, I have lost faith that a
Speaker 2: favorable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety
Speaker 2: and ability to express my beliefs. I've lost faith I
Speaker 2: could walk the streets without being abducted. Weighing these options,
Speaker 2: I took the decision to leave on my own terms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty bleak.
Speaker 2: So Tall has elected for the quote unquote self deportation option,
Speaker 2: at least for now. I believe his case is going
Speaker 2: to continue, but he is not going to remain in
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think he returned to the UK, right.
Speaker 2: I believe so. Yeah, he's a British citizen now. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: last September, Cornell University itself tried to revoke Tall's student
Speaker 2: visa for involvement in student protests but he successfully appealed
Speaker 2: and was able to continue his African studies PhD remotely.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I spoke to him a little bit back then,
Speaker 3: just FIA direct message, But I think at that time,
Speaker 3: whatever his agreement was, it seems like there was a
Speaker 3: component of it that at least he didn't want to
Speaker 3: talk about it in public, which is fine. Everyone has
Speaker 3: the right to do that, and he should do it
Speaker 3: was best for himself. But maybe I'll try and follow
Speaker 3: up with him again now see if he wants to speak,
Speaker 3: because he seems to have like he's been of all
Speaker 3: of these people at the one who's been able to
Speaker 3: make the most statements and then control his narrative to
Speaker 3: some degree. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, he entered this period of like radio silence after
Speaker 2: he won his appeal last fall, and then only started
Speaker 2: speaking publicly again once he began getting targeted by the
Speaker 2: Trump administration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the past month and a half. I think
Speaker 3: he proactively filed that suit right like before.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, the scale that Mark Rubio and I start
Speaker 2: seeking for in regards to deep ortations is seemingly going
Speaker 2: to be increasingly large. On March twenty seventh, Secretary of
Speaker 2: State Mark Rubio claimed that he has revoked over three
Speaker 2: hundred student visas so far, saying at a press conference, quote,
Speaker 2: we do it every day. Every time I find one
Speaker 2: of these lunatics, I take away their visas unquote.
Speaker 3: Now there are a.
Speaker 2: Few ways the government is currently trying to find these
Speaker 2: quote unquote lunatics. I used to seem to be targeting
Speaker 2: non citizens who have been arrested or detained at Palestine protests,
Speaker 2: even if their charges were subsequently dropped. This is the
Speaker 2: case for Chung and Shriny Vawsen, as well as former
Speaker 2: student Leca Cordia, a Palestinian who was arrested at Columbia
Speaker 2: campus protests in April of twenty twenty four She's currently
Speaker 2: being held in an ice attention facility in Texas. Now
Speaker 2: beyond arrest records, the government is utilizing the World Wide
Speaker 2: Web and social media to identify new and returning visa
Speaker 2: applicants and possibly current visa holders that quote support terrorist
Speaker 2: organizations unquote. Social media screening of immigrants and visa holders
Speaker 2: has been slowly ramping up since twenty fourteen and accelerated
Speaker 2: during Trump's first term, but a new directive from Secretary
Speaker 2: of State Mark Rubio titled enhanced screening and social media
Speaker 2: vetting for visa applicants was sent out on March twenty
Speaker 2: fifth and leaked by journalist Ken Klippenstein. The directive cites
Speaker 2: two executive orders from Trump measures to combat anti Semitism
Speaker 2: end quote protecting the United States from foreign terrorists and
Speaker 2: other national security and public safety threats. The State Department
Speaker 2: is now requiring consular officers to conduct a quote unquote
Speaker 2: mandatory social media review with screenshotting for students and student
Speaker 2: exchange visitors with the intent of looking for evidence of
Speaker 2: quote advocating for, sympathizing with, or persuading others to endorse
Speaker 2: or espouse terrorist activities or support a designated foreign terrorist
Speaker 2: organization quote. Now this applies to FM and J visas,
Speaker 2: so student exchange visas, academic visas, and vocational visas. The
Speaker 2: directive also instructs officers to search social media for quote
Speaker 2: conduct that bears a hostile attitude towards US citizens or
Speaker 2: US culture, including government institutions or founding principles unquote, which
Speaker 2: is kind of the most incredibly broad thing I've ever
Speaker 2: s scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's leaving it at the create discretion
Speaker 3: of the officer, right, there's.
Speaker 2: Already been an instance of a US customers agent's denying
Speaker 2: entry to someone who had quote unquote anti Trump sentiments
Speaker 2: found on their phone. Now, though this new directive is
Speaker 2: focused on denying or revoking student visas, the Department of
Speaker 2: Homeland Security is seeking to expand its social media data
Speaker 2: collection to US citizenship, green card, and asylum applicants, basically
Speaker 2: anyone and everyone in the US immigration system, no matter
Speaker 2: their current status or what previous vetting they might have
Speaker 2: already gone through.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: On March fifth, DHS issued a sixty day notice for
Speaker 2: public comment on a proposal for quote uniform of vetting
Speaker 2: standards and national security screening unquote that includes the collection
Speaker 2: of social media information for all non citizens applying for
Speaker 2: immigration benefits like citizenship or permanent residency. A statement from
Speaker 2: the US Citizenship and Immigration Service reads, quote, these efforts
Speaker 2: ensure that those seeking immigration benefits to live and work
Speaker 2: in the United States do not threaten public safety, undermine
Speaker 2: national security, or promote harmful anti American ideologies unquote.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like the anti American ideologies again is just fastly broad.
Speaker 2: Right, It's like crazy red scare level stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm guessing this will be either like a
Speaker 3: literal control f of whatever they can find of your
Speaker 3: public social media or aif that's some kind of AI assistant.
Speaker 3: That's what it seems to be, right, Like.
Speaker 2: Former immigration agents have suggested that they're probably going to
Speaker 2: use some AI system for this, as they've already kind
Speaker 2: of used more primitive versions, but ramping up to this
Speaker 2: scale and with like this increased focus and like attention
Speaker 2: on quote unquote AI is going to affect the way
Speaker 2: that they do this betting process. Absolutely, yeah, great. So
Speaker 2: though the government is trying to increase their social media
Speaker 2: screening so far, they actually haven't had to do that
Speaker 2: much of their own research to identify targets for removal.
Speaker 2: On March seventeenth, a Georgetown scholar named Bdar Khan Suri
Speaker 2: was arrested by Homeland Security outside his home in Virginia,
Speaker 2: where he lives with his wife, who's a US citizen,
Speaker 2: and their three kids. According to Surrey's lawyer, masked agents
Speaker 2: quote refused to tell him the basis for the arrest,
Speaker 2: handcuffed him, and forced him into an unmarked black SUV. Later,
Speaker 2: his wife was informed that her husband's visa was revoked
Speaker 2: based on social media posts. And that Surrey was sent
Speaker 2: to ice attention in Louisiana. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Trisha
Speaker 2: McLoughlin posted on x that Surrey was quote actively spreading
Speaker 2: Hamas propaganda and promoting anti Semitism on social media. The
Speaker 2: Secretary of State issued a determination that Surrey's activities and
Speaker 2: presents in the United States rendered him deportable unquote. Of course,
Speaker 2: any single post in support of Palestine is going to
Speaker 2: be seen as quote unquote promoting antisemitism. According to Mark Rubio,
Speaker 2: Surrey's lawyer wrote in a court filing, quote, doctor Surrey
Speaker 2: is an academic, not an activist, but he spoke out
Speaker 2: on social media about his views on the Israel Gazo war.
Speaker 2: Even more so, his wife is an outspoken critic of
Speaker 2: the Israeli government and the violence it has perpetuated against
Speaker 2: Palestinians unquote. Yet see that he was identified through his wife, right, correct,
Speaker 2: and we'll get to that.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Surrey has no criminal record, and according to a colleague,
Speaker 2: he did not attend campus protests. However, Surrey's lawyer writes
Speaker 2: that his family have been victims of a docsing campaign,
Speaker 2: with his wife stating that a website had quote claimed
Speaker 2: falsely that my husband and I have quote ties to
Speaker 2: Hamas unquote. The Homeland Security Assistant Secretary references that claim
Speaker 2: in a public statement on Twitter. And this harassment stems
Speaker 2: in part from Surrey's father in law being a maud Yusef,
Speaker 2: a former advisor to Hamas. A federal judge blocked Suri's
Speaker 2: deportation as immigration court proceedings continue. But he's still means
Speaker 2: in iced attention.
Speaker 3: What kind of visa was he on?
Speaker 2: He's not a green card holder. He received his visa
Speaker 2: to continue doctoral research on peace building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: It's some kind of like academic or exchange visa. I
Speaker 2: don't think we know the exact type that he has.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, that would be like it would be interesting
Speaker 3: to know if like, are they searching just through F
Speaker 3: one visa databases or are they said I mean obviously
Speaker 3: not if they're finding these green card people, but.
Speaker 2: Like, well, I think specifically in this case, they're searching
Speaker 2: social media. They're not searching through their own databases. They
Speaker 2: don't care what kind of visa he has. They're looking
Speaker 2: at this docksing campaign that's been targeted at him and
Speaker 2: his family for like over a year and using that
Speaker 2: as the basis to deport him.
Speaker 3: Right, and then being like, can we deport he's not
Speaker 3: a citizen?
Speaker 2: So yes, basically even though his wife is a citizen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's children publy therefore also citizens.
Speaker 2: His wife who's whose father is a mod yusef they
Speaker 2: can't deport her because she's a citizen or at least
Speaker 2: they can't abort her right now. Who knows if they'll
Speaker 2: try to denaturalize in the future. Yeah, but this is
Speaker 2: the easiest person to target.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's kind of what they're going for. Like,
Speaker 3: a lot of this is it's like the politics of
Speaker 3: owning the Libs, Right, It's like the politics of being
Speaker 3: angry at your niece and nephew on Facebook and wanting
Speaker 3: to humiliate them.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 3: It's not a particularly lately coherent policy other than like
Speaker 3: the Palestine protests made a lot of people on the
Speaker 3: right mad and they don't like migrants, and that now
Speaker 3: they're using this obscure legal provision as a cudgel against
Speaker 3: everything they dislike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and using social media to identify people who have
Speaker 2: never been arrested, never been charged with anything. Yeah, we're
Speaker 2: going to finish our discussion on these docing campaigns and
Speaker 2: ICE action starking students after.
Speaker 3: This ad break. All right, we're back, So right.
Speaker 2: Now, the two main vectors for iceed attention whether you
Speaker 2: have a green card or a visa, seems to be
Speaker 2: previous arrests or these mass doxing campaigns. Now, someone like
Speaker 2: Mahmoud Khalil was never arrested or charged with the crime,
Speaker 2: but instead has been the target of harassment from both
Speaker 2: a local campus doxing account run by Columbia professors and
Speaker 2: fellow students, as well as larger right wing Zionist organizations
Speaker 2: like Canary Mission. A few days before being arrested by ICE,
Speaker 2: Canary Mission posted a video naming Khalil as a quote
Speaker 2: unquote siren mog suspected foreign national alert. So what is
Speaker 2: Canary Mission? If you're lucky enough to be unaware? Since
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, Canary Mission has been collecting and publishing a
Speaker 2: personal information of people they accuse of promoting quote hatred
Speaker 2: of the United States, Israel, and Jews on a North
Speaker 2: American college campus and beyond unquote. Now they have profiles
Speaker 2: for a few legitimate American neo Nazis, but many profiles
Speaker 2: only cite criticism of the Israeli government and its actions
Speaker 2: in Gaza as proof of alleged anti Semitism. And now
Speaker 2: there is increasing evidence that the government is using websites
Speaker 2: like Canary Mission to target students, professors, and scholars for
Speaker 2: ICE deportation, essentially outsourcing intail gathering from these pro Israel
Speaker 2: non government organizations. A few weeks ago, Canary Mission uploaded
Speaker 2: a profile for Rumesa oz Turk, a Turkish graduate student
Speaker 2: at Tufts University. They included a picture her resume and
Speaker 2: linked to an op ed she co wrote last year
Speaker 2: for her student paper criticizing the university for its ties
Speaker 2: to Israel amidst the war in Gaza. For this, the
Speaker 2: Canary Mission claimed oz Turk quote engaged in anti Israel
Speaker 2: activism unquote. Two weeks later, while walking along to if
Speaker 2: Tar dinner for Ramadan, a plane clothes ICE agent approached
Speaker 2: oz Turk on the sidewalk. As he grabbed her arms
Speaker 2: and wrestled away her phone, five more agents surrounded her
Speaker 2: and pulled up their gator masks as neighbors began filming
Speaker 2: the arrest. Within twenty four hours, she was moved to
Speaker 2: ICE attention in Louisiana. A statement from Homeland Security claimed
Speaker 2: that HSI Homeland Security Investigation had determined that oz Turk
Speaker 2: quote engaged in activities in support of hamas a foreign
Speaker 2: terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans, and Secretary
Speaker 2: of State Mark Rubio said, quote, we gave you a
Speaker 2: visa to come and study and get a degree, not
Speaker 2: to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.
Speaker 3: Unquote. Yeah, I mean again, like writing an op ed
Speaker 3: is like as central to the First Amendment as things
Speaker 3: can be.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there's no evidence she was even attending campus protests,
Speaker 2: let alone r tearing up tearing up the university. She
Speaker 2: co wrote an op ed, And you should not be
Speaker 2: deported for engaging in protest on a university campus at all. Right,
Speaker 2: this is flatantly unconstitutional, extremely worrying. The fact that this
Speaker 2: person just got a profile in the Canary Mission website
Speaker 2: for writing an op ed and then this is used
Speaker 2: as justification for her deportation is still like an even
Speaker 2: greater escalation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like if we're talking about like this is sort
Speaker 3: of like liberal idea of the marketplace of ideas, right,
Speaker 3: Like the way that the ideas enter the marketplace, like,
Speaker 3: you will find nothing more amenable to liberalism than writing
Speaker 3: an op ed in your campus newspaper. Right, that is
Speaker 3: the most like well behaved, straight down the middle, constitutionally
Speaker 3: protected thing way to engage in anti genocide activism, pro
Speaker 3: Palestine activism. So like in a sense, this one is
Speaker 3: particularly disturbing, like a a frontal assault on First Amendment
Speaker 3: rise for non citizens is what it is. Yes.
Speaker 2: On March twenty fourth, Canary Misis published a new section
Speaker 2: of their website titled Uncovering Foreign Nationals, which lists the
Speaker 2: profiles of non citizens who they believe qualify for deportation.
Speaker 3: Jesus.
Speaker 2: Another far right pro Israel docs in group called Batar,
Speaker 2: which even the ADL lists as an extremist group, which
Speaker 2: is wild. Baitar says that they have given the Trump
Speaker 2: administration a deportation list of thousands of names, including citizens
Speaker 2: that they expect to be denaturalized. People like Mamadoo Tall
Speaker 2: and Mahmoud Khalil have been targeted by both of these organizations.
Speaker 3: People will be familiar with. I don't know if it's
Speaker 3: Bitar or Bitar, but like you probably have seen videos
Speaker 3: of them on campus trying to hand pages to people pagers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like making light of the pager attack Israel.
Speaker 3: Did I mean making a threat? Like sure, Like if
Speaker 3: you're going to come onto a campus and make a
Speaker 3: fucking bomb threat and accused someone else of terrorism. I
Speaker 3: mean the hypocrisy is kind of the point.
Speaker 2: But or even just like you know, quote unquote celebrating
Speaker 2: the deaths of people, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, like mocking this attack which killed children, which
Speaker 3: you know, crippled people. It's just disgusting. It's like just important.
Speaker 3: They seem to get a lot of attention online because
Speaker 3: they do the thing where they go up to people
Speaker 3: and say deliberately provocative things and then film their reactions. Right,
Speaker 3: they're kind of irl trolling.
Speaker 2: The past week, ICE actions against students have seemingly accelerated.
Speaker 2: Ali Reza Drudi, a doctoral student from Iran studying at
Speaker 2: the University of Alabama, was arrested by ICE on March
Speaker 2: twenty fifth in the middle of the night at his
Speaker 2: off campus apartment. Drudi's the entry visa expired, but he
Speaker 2: was allowed to stay in the States as he still
Speaker 2: maintained his student's status. Yeah, it's unknown why exactly he
Speaker 2: was targeted. He has no ties to protests or any
Speaker 2: notable online footprint.
Speaker 3: It could be his ethnic origin, right leg, Yeah, it
Speaker 3: could be his name, right yeah. But that we should
Speaker 3: explain the status thing a bit more for people who
Speaker 3: aren't familiar. So like, sure, your status is when you're
Speaker 3: in good standing with the university. So normally that means
Speaker 3: you need to be enrolled in twelve credits per You
Speaker 3: might be on semesters, you might be on courters. I
Speaker 3: don't think it's usually matters you have to there's a
Speaker 3: minimum course load. It may be different for different systems.
Speaker 3: I don't know. You'd also need to be in good
Speaker 3: standing in terms of like not lay on your fees
Speaker 3: or your tuition fees, that kind of stuff, right not
Speaker 3: in any you haven't been expelled or excluded from the
Speaker 3: university for any actions that you've taken, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: It means you are currently a student at the university. Basically,
Speaker 3: the only time this normally affects international students that I'm
Speaker 3: aware of as a person who now teaches students is
Speaker 3: like they can't drop below a certain courseload, when otherwise
Speaker 3: they may wish to drop below a certain courseload to
Speaker 3: either focus on they might have like a research position.
Speaker 3: They might be doing other stuff on campus like taing. Right,
Speaker 3: Sometimes that ta and counts towards their course, so sometimes
Speaker 3: it doesn't, but it can affect things like that. But
Speaker 3: generally it would be the university that would update that status. Right,
Speaker 3: that would notify US Customs and Immigration if somebody fell
Speaker 3: out of compliance with that. If I'm hearing right, that
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like that's what happened here, right.
Speaker 2: No, Simply his entry visa expired, so if he left
Speaker 2: the country, he then would have to get another visa
Speaker 2: to get back, but he can stay as long as
Speaker 2: he still has his valid student status. So not only
Speaker 2: is ICE trying to revoke these like visas, but they're
Speaker 2: trying to essentially say that by revoking these visas, they
Speaker 2: are also attempting to strip them of their student status,
Speaker 2: which is like a separate like step. These things can
Speaker 2: get kind of very very blurry though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I don't quite know how that works in
Speaker 3: terms of like our ICE supposed to be able to
Speaker 3: I don't think it hugely matters at this.
Speaker 2: Technically, the State Department does have that ability, but it's
Speaker 2: under the same like Foreign policy risk designation, Okay, and
Speaker 2: they'll justify it by saying, well, his visa already expired,
Speaker 2: so we're just removing him because his visa expired, even
Speaker 2: though that's not really how this works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then they don't have to remove him for that reason.
Speaker 3: But yeah, in this case, I guess they've go for
Speaker 3: something else.
Speaker 2: No, because the University of Alabama did not elect to
Speaker 2: rescind his student status. He was a student in good standing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and thus legally allowed in the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, like everyone else here, he hadn't done anything
Speaker 3: that would, under normal circumstances lead him having any interactions
Speaker 3: with USCIS.
Speaker 2: Just this last week, I sttained a University of Minnesota
Speaker 2: grad student at their off campus housing. The university released
Speaker 2: a statement saying that they had no prior knowledge of
Speaker 2: this incident and had not shared any information with federal authorities.
Speaker 2: This person's name is still not released.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Last week, a student udent at the Southern Illinois University
Speaker 2: had their visa revoked. The school administration told their college
Speaker 2: paper that the university has no role in the visa
Speaker 2: revocation process. The Illinois Governor's office is working with schools
Speaker 2: across the state to quote ensure they are being vigilant
Speaker 2: about what's happening on their respective campuses. The Governor's team
Speaker 2: has asked universities to communicate with international students about the
Speaker 2: general resources available to them through the institution. In addition,
Speaker 2: we have suggested that they connect impacted students with legal
Speaker 2: resources that have been in place for several years. According
Speaker 2: to a statement sent to the university paper, The Daily
Speaker 2: Egyptian Tina Sickinger, which is a very cool name, the
Speaker 2: school's director of International Student and Scholar Services sent an
Speaker 2: email to the international student body of Southern Illinois University
Speaker 2: advising them to carry photocopies of immigration documents with them
Speaker 2: at all times, as well as proof of enrollment and
Speaker 2: records of US residences. The email recommended that students quote
Speaker 2: use caution on social media and exercise discretion when participating
Speaker 2: in political demonstrations or protests unquote, warning that though protests
Speaker 2: should be protected speech quote, such activities can sometimes be
Speaker 2: misinterpreted and make carry risks to your immigration status unquote. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I think this is the university trying to look out
Speaker 2: for these students.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the best you could expect from them, really.
Speaker 2: And they are providing like legal resources to these students,
Speaker 2: but they're essentially saying like you shouldn't post anything or
Speaker 2: do any protests because then ice might come kidnap you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is just a fucked up situation to be in,
Speaker 2: and like yeah, they don't have like any other ability
Speaker 2: to like stop this right now. I am curious what
Speaker 2: Prisker is going to continue to do here though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, none of what they've said is like wrong,
Speaker 3: It's kind of what you can expect from university. The
Speaker 3: best you can expect from the university really is like, hey,
Speaker 3: we've noticed it's happening.
Speaker 2: So that is the situation as it currently stands. I
Speaker 2: do have one final tidbit here just that highlights the
Speaker 2: absurdity of this whole situation. On March twenty fourth, a
Speaker 2: lawsuit on behalf of Israeli Columbia students and relatives of
Speaker 2: Israeli October seventh victims was filed against Columbia Jewish Voice
Speaker 2: for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia University
Speaker 2: Apartheid divest and individual Columbia students, including Mahmoud Khalil. The
Speaker 2: lawsuit allege is that these Colombia groups and students are
Speaker 2: the domestic propaganda arm of Hamas, and even claims that
Speaker 2: these groups had advanced notice that the October seventh attack
Speaker 2: was going to take place.
Speaker 3: Oh, come on.
Speaker 2: So the plan was kept secret among Hamas's own political
Speaker 2: allies in the region, but they gave an Ivy League
Speaker 2: university in the New York City.
Speaker 3: It had to tip off. They just let him know
Speaker 3: what was coming.
Speaker 2: Completely absurd.
Speaker 3: The absolutely like like the IDF completely failed to see
Speaker 3: this coming, right, But they're not the folks at the
Speaker 3: Ivy League universities who were who were ready and waiting.
Speaker 2: Hamas didn't tell the who thies, They didn't tell Iran,
Speaker 2: they didn't tell Hesbola, but they told student activist groups
Speaker 2: in New York City at the Columbia University campus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely ludicrous. Like I eagerly await this this court case.
Speaker 3: I guess to see what evidence they have of this.
Speaker 3: The evidence is going to be like someone had a
Speaker 3: Palestinian flag.
Speaker 2: Some of the quote unquote evidence that they that they
Speaker 2: allege is that some of these like activist accounts had
Speaker 2: a renewed activity in October of twenty twenty three, like
Speaker 2: before the attack happened. But this is just a simple coincidence.
Speaker 2: Obviously these people did not have a heads up that
Speaker 2: the October seventh attack was going to take place.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The lawsuit also argues that protest activity is not First
Speaker 2: Amendment protected speech, but in fact, quote substantial assistance in
Speaker 2: the form of propaganda and recruiting services and in coordination
Speaker 2: with a designated foreign terrorist organization, again alleging there's some
Speaker 2: kind of communication between Hobmas and student activists in New
Speaker 2: York City.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is ludicrous. Like, one of the reasons that
Speaker 3: maybe we're seeing this so much over the Palestine advocacy
Speaker 3: is that HAMAS is a listed foreign terrorist organization. Many
Speaker 3: other groups and lots of groups in that part of
Speaker 3: the world are, But like it's just a bigger stick
Speaker 3: to wave I guess material aid or that no one
Speaker 3: has been actually accused of material aid to foreign terrorist
Speaker 3: organization as far as I'm aware, But like that is
Speaker 3: kind of the sort of stick that they're waving, right,
Speaker 3: that is the thing that they're alleging.
Speaker 2: I will end us with just this kind of final note. Now,
Speaker 2: while there are little signs that this would happen at
Speaker 2: a scale this large and disfocused under a democratic president,
Speaker 2: a degree of consent for this type of targeting was
Speaker 2: manufactured the past year as it relates to Palestine protests,
Speaker 2: with some liberals and democratic politicians associating activists as pro
Speaker 2: hamas terrorists. And this is the consequence of that public
Speaker 2: perception building and the consent being manufactured for that framing.
Speaker 2: And now that the even more evil side is in charge,
Speaker 2: they can take that justification and run with it way
Speaker 2: further than what a Joe Biden or a Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: would have done. So it is far worse, but it's
Speaker 2: not in a political bubble. This has been like a
Speaker 2: growing project for the past few years.
Speaker 3: There was no point at which to Biden administration really
Speaker 3: like effusively said, this is protected First Amendment speech. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we may not like it, but it is central to
Speaker 3: the Bill of Rights. It's central to what America is
Speaker 3: supposed to be about.
Speaker 2: They never defended the constitutionality of this speech. Yeah, Nor
Speaker 2: would they have intervened to stop the deportation of someone
Speaker 2: like Tall if Cornell decided to revoke his status, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think they buy an administration or a Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris administration would be directed in these these universities to
Speaker 2: take that action themselves, nor would they be I think,
Speaker 2: revoking student visas at skill like this, No, but they
Speaker 2: would have let Ice do the stuff that Ice does
Speaker 2: if universities themselves elect to remove student visas or unenroll
Speaker 2: these students. And like a degree of the complacency here
Speaker 2: is placed on the actual university administrations, the university staff,
Speaker 2: who have been vilifying these protesters for the past two years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean in some cases, right, like I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of one of Colombia, Like professors have got away
Speaker 3: with things which are absolutely unacceptable and like one hundred
Speaker 3: percent in some violation of your agreement with the university
Speaker 3: as a member of the faculty, like doxing your students. Yeah,
Speaker 3: photographing students without their consent, following students around like absolutely unacceptable,
Speaker 3: Like in any other context that you would be immediately
Speaker 3: shit canned, Like really, really, the only reason you can
Speaker 3: lose ten ure seemingly is being a fucking creep to
Speaker 3: students or stealing a lot of money. And like universities
Speaker 3: did allow that for more than a year under the
Speaker 3: Biden administration, and like we're seeing the consequences of that now.
Speaker 2: It's also worth noting that since I've had to quote
Speaker 2: from so many government statements this episode, the Trump admin
Speaker 2: is continuing to correlate any expression of sympathy or solidarity
Speaker 2: with Palestine as explicit support for Hamas. Basically, anything you
Speaker 2: say that's critical of the Israeli government its actions in
Speaker 2: Gaza are being interpreted by the Trump administration as anti
Speaker 2: Semitism and support for the October seventh massacre. This is
Speaker 2: a false equivalency. What the government alleges should not be
Speaker 2: automatically taken as the truth. These tactics have been used
Speaker 2: for years to broadly smear pro Palestine activists while also
Speaker 2: hurting anti Zionist Jews. And I guess like, finally, we
Speaker 2: are not necess necessarily endorsing every single thing that every
Speaker 2: single one of these students has said. We do not
Speaker 2: necessarily agree with the framing of every single sentence that
Speaker 2: they have said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we don't know everything that they've said.
Speaker 2: We can, yeah, exactly. This is like completely separate to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't matter, Like we are defending their right
Speaker 3: to engage in constitutionally protected to speaking.
Speaker 2: Correct no matter what they're saying, no matter if they
Speaker 2: have opinions on Hamas, that differ from ours. No matter
Speaker 2: what they are saying at a campus protest, it should
Speaker 2: not result in ICE targeting them and hunting them down
Speaker 2: and forcing students who attend to sit in protests into
Speaker 2: hiding to defend their own rights and to keep their
Speaker 2: green cards. This is like a completely absurd and like
Speaker 2: blatantly fascist to use the now overused word frankly, but
Speaker 2: this is like this is this is what that is.
Speaker 2: If this was happening in China, this was happening in Russia,
Speaker 2: in other countries, people would be very very quick to
Speaker 2: call out.
Speaker 3: I mean, it does happen in Russia, right people, exactly?
Speaker 3: People just yeah, yeah, And the State Department of this
Speaker 3: country has called it out right like it at rightly.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with everything the State Department does, but
Speaker 3: they do agree with him on that, like yeah, And
Speaker 3: I think this is like I know, if you find
Speaker 3: yourself having a discussion about this, I think almost everyone
Speaker 3: in America can find something that they disagree with the
Speaker 3: government on or have disagreed with the government on, and
Speaker 3: like this hurts every single one of us, right, like
Speaker 3: everyone's right to freedom of speech is challenged. When someone's
Speaker 3: right to freedom of speech is challenged, and like, I
Speaker 3: think that is the way to approach this. It doesn't
Speaker 3: really matter if the people whose speech is being challenged
Speaker 3: right now, their speech is if it's odious to us,
Speaker 3: if it's something that we don't agree with, Like that
Speaker 3: isn't what's at stake. What's at stake is everyone's right
Speaker 3: to say everything without government consequences.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that doesn't for us today. At it
Speaker 2: could happen here. We will continue to report on utar
Speaker 2: getting of students, scholars and professors, and immigrants in general
Speaker 2: as the Trump administration ramps up its deportation efforts. If
Speaker 2: you would like to contact us about these topics, we
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Speaker 2: if you use another encrypted email service or another proton
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