International students spoke out against the war in Gaza. Now, some face deportation
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In recent weeks, we've seen repeated instances of international university students taken by immigration agents from the lobby of their student housing...
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UNIDENTIFIED IMMIGRATION AGENT: You're going to be under arrest, so turn around. Turn around.
FADEL: ...As they walk the streets...
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RUMEYSA OZTURK: (Shrieking).
FADEL: ...Outside their door.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We were here yesterday. We're here today. We're going to be here tonight and tomorrow.
FADEL: Today, a look at whether immigration is now a tool for censorship as part of our series on The State of the First Amendment: The Right From Which All Other Rights Flow.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Armed agents of the state who kidnapped her from outside of her home.
CORY BOOKER: Disappearing people off of American streets.
NOOR ABDALLA: The fact that you can kidnap someone basically from their home for going to a protest is terrifying.
FADEL: The kidnapped and disappeared is how critics are describing the wave of detentions of noncitizen activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy or protests. In one case, it appeared to be over an op-ed. The administration and its defenders say these students are a threat to national security, and they say the secretary of state has the right to revoke their visas and green cards.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: We have a zero-tolerance policy for siding with terrorists, period.
TROY EDGAR: He's put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity.
MARCO RUBIO: We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.
FADEL: To be clear, none of these students have been charged with any crime, including the crime of supporting a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. And the detentions have some other green-card holders and visa holders, even those who are not students, watching and worrying. It's prompted people like Raymond, a lawful permanent resident from Hong Kong, to start scrubbing his social media before his upcoming trip abroad for a wedding.
RAYMOND: Now I actually have to think about, OK, maybe I should stop - like, make my social media private.
FADEL: He works in the U.S. He's married to a citizen. And for this interview, he asks us to only use his first name in case it hurts his immigration status.
RAYMOND: I don't join protest now. I feel like it's a stupid thing because I feel like I'm now being compliant before the thing even hits me. But, like, it also feels like that - like the risk is higher that my legal status is going to be in jeopardy.
FADEL: While Raymond is choosing to lay low, 30-year-old Momodou Taal made a different calculation. The Ph.D. student at Cornell filed a lawsuit against the government on the grounds of free speech before they came for him and other immigrants. He's an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights. Then Immigration and Customs Enforcement called for the dual Gambian British citizen here on a student visa to turn himself in for deportation. We spoke with Taal's lawyers, Eric Lee and Chris Godshall-Bennett, about why their client's case is not just about him but about the right to free speech.
CHRIS GODSHALL-BENNETT: We've seen other folks sort of ensnared in this, you know, disappearing regime that are not talking about Palestine but are talking about immigrant justice or other criticisms of the United States government.
FADEL: You said disappearing regime.
GODSHALL-BENNETT: That is what I said, yes.
FADEL: And you use that term for the U.S. government at this point. Can you say why?
ERIC LEE: Well - this is Eric - Americans should be horrified by what's happening right now. People are being grabbed out of their homes. They're being taken off the sidewalk by gangs of federal agents, thrown in the back of law enforcement vehicles, taken away sometimes thousands of miles from their homes. This is what happens in a dictatorship. And these are test cases. If the government can get away with doing this to these students, it can do it to everybody in this country. Your citizenship won't save you. Your views will be next.
FADEL: We've heard the administration repeatedly say that visa holders don't have the same protections as American citizens, that it is a privilege to be in this country and that their status can be revoked.
LEE: Right. Well, that's a total non sequitur because the First Amendment applies to people who are physically in the United States, regardless of their alienage, regardless of what country they were born in, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of their immigration status. And that's - couldn't be clearer for people who are here lawfully and who have lived in this country for a long time and belong to the people. If one takes the Trump administration's argument there to its logical conclusion, it fundamentally transforms the relationship between the people and the government because it says that the government gets to decide to whom and when rights apply, regardless of what the Constitution says. And that's the modus operandi of this administration. But by saying that attending a protest makes one a threat to American foreign policy, the administration is admitting that the Constitution is getting in the way of the fight for democracy.
FADEL: You said, if you think it stops at visa holders and green-card holders as citizens, you're wrong. What do you mean?
LEE: Well, these are the first targets. Donald Trump has tried to overturn the 14th Amendment - one of the most important and revolutionary elements of the American Constitution - to strip the birthright citizenship rights of those born in this country. So anybody who thinks that this is just about somebody else or just about the views of somebody else has got another thing coming.
GODSHALL-BENNETT: This is Chris again. I would just add there's also been talk of utilizing and expanding denaturalization procedures - right? - which is the mechanism by which you strip a citizen of their citizenship. I don't think there's any reason to think - and I think it actually would be foolish to think that this is limited to noncitizens.
FADEL: A few days after we first spoke, Taal posted a statement saying he has left the U.S. Quote, "given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith in a favorable ruling that would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs. I have lost faith to walk the streets without being abducted." So we call his lawyers back.
GODSHALL-BENNETT: With Momodou out of the country, it's not really tenable to continue the lawsuit, and so we dismissed it.
FADEL: Now that it ends this way, with your client leaving, what does that mean?
GODSHALL-BENNETT: This case raised these fundamental questions about the policy at issue - right? - that there are people who have already been detained, and there are people who fear detention based on their speech. So the fight is not over, and Momodou and we were not the only people in that fight.
LEE: What the government did to Momodou Taal is a warning sign to every single person in this country, regardless of their citizenship, regardless of their political views, regardless of what they think of the struggle of the people of Palestine. Unfortunately, we're in a situation where there's a moral obligation on everybody who's listening to get outside to do something, to oppose this.
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