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ICE on Campus

2025/3/31
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#social activism#political investigations#political discourse#political commentary#political and social commentary#international relations#personal freedom and expression#legal insights#imprisonment experience People
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Hamed Aleaziz
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Rachel Abrams
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@Hamed Aleaziz : 我报道了特朗普政府对大学校园内国际学生的移民执法行动。起初,政府主要针对的是有犯罪记录的无证移民。但现在,政府开始将目标转向那些持有学生签证或绿卡的合法居留者,理由是这些人传播了政府认为与美国外交政策相悖的信息。政府利用总统竞选期间的言论,以及国务卿卢比奥发布的备忘录,作为针对这些学生的法律依据。 我报道的三个哥伦比亚大学学生的案例,分别展现了政府的不同策略。马哈茂德·哈利勒拥有绿卡,但他因参与抗议活动而被捕,政府指控他的行为损害了美国的外交政策利益。兰贾尼·斯里尼瓦桑的签证被吊销,ICE 前来逮捕她,她最终选择逃往加拿大。尹素忠自七岁起就居住在美国,她被捕后,政府动用大量资源试图逮捕她。 这些案例表明,政府正在利用各种手段来达到驱逐国际学生的目的,包括吊销签证、逮捕、以及施压迫使学生自我遣返。政府的行为引发了人们对言论自由和政府权力范围的质疑。政府声称有权驱逐那些他们认为损害美国外交政策利益的人,即使这些人是合法居留者。 这些案例也反映了政府在移民执法方面的策略转变。政府不再仅仅针对无证移民,而是开始将目标转向那些他们认为具有潜在威胁的合法居留者。这使得许多持有绿卡的人感到恐惧和不确定。 @Rachel Abrams : 通过对哥伦比亚大学三名学生的案例分析,我们了解到特朗普政府正在对大学校园内的国际学生采取大规模的移民执法行动。这些学生有的持有绿卡,有的持有学生签证,他们都因为参与政治抗议活动而成为政府的目标。政府声称这些学生的活动损害了美国的外交政策利益,并以此为由对他们进行逮捕或驱逐。 哈利勒的案例尤其引人注目,因为他持有绿卡,但仍被政府逮捕并拘留。斯里尼瓦桑的案例则显示了政府如何利用吊销签证的方式来迫使学生自我遣返。尹素忠的案例则突显了政府在追捕学生时所动用的巨大资源。 这些案例引发了人们对言论自由和政府权力范围的担忧。政府似乎正在利用移民执法来压制异见,这与美国宪法所保障的言论自由原则相冲突。此外,政府对这些学生的指控也显得有些牵强,将普通的政治抗议活动与恐怖主义活动混为一谈。 这些案例也表明,政府正在对大学校园采取一种新的移民执法策略。过去,ICE 通常不会在大学校园内进行执法,但现在,他们却频繁出现在大学校园内,逮捕国际学生。这使得大学面临着巨大的压力,也让国际学生感到不安和恐惧。

Deep Dive

特朗普政府对大学校园国际学生的移民执法:言论自由的界限?

我近期报道了特朗普政府对美国大学校园内国际学生的移民执法行动,其策略之严厉、手段之多样,令人震惊。起初,政府的打击重点是那些有犯罪记录的无证移民。然而,如今,执法范围已扩大至持有学生签证甚至绿卡的合法居留者。政府的理由是这些学生传播了被认为与美国外交政策相悖的信息。

这种转变并非偶然。它源于特朗普总统竞选期间的言论,以及国务卿卢比奥发布的备忘录,这些都为政府针对特定学生提供了法律依据。我关注的三个哥伦比亚大学学生的案例,清晰地展现了政府的多种策略:

  • 马哈茂德·哈利勒 (Mahmoud Khalil): 这位拥有绿卡的哥伦比亚大学学生,因参与校园抗议活动而被捕。政府指控他的行为损害了美国打击反犹太主义的国际外交政策利益。值得注意的是,哈利勒的逮捕发生在他位于校园公寓内,其妻子全程录像,记录了逮捕过程中的细节。

  • 兰贾尼·斯里尼瓦桑 (Ranjani Srinivasan): 这位来自印度的博士生,因参与校园抗议活动,其学生签证被吊销。ICE随后上门试图逮捕她,她最终选择逃往加拿大,实现了政府所希望的“自我遣返”。

  • 尹素忠 (Yoon So Chung): 这位自七岁起就居住在美国的韩国裔学生,因参与校园静坐抗议活动而被捕。此后,政府动用大量资源,包括匿名短信恐吓和联邦检察官介入,试图将其逮捕。目前,她的下落不明,但据律师透露,她仍在境内,并担心自身位置信息被泄露。

这三个案例共同揭示了政府的几种策略:吊销签证、直接逮捕、以及通过施压迫使学生自我遣返。这些手段的运用,引发了人们对言论自由和政府权力边界的深刻质疑。政府声称有权驱逐那些被认为损害美国外交政策利益的人,即使这些人是合法居留者,这无疑挑战了美国宪法所保障的言论自由原则。

更令人担忧的是,政府对这些学生的指控往往显得牵强附会,将普通的政治抗议活动与恐怖主义活动混为一谈。哈利勒和斯里尼瓦桑的案例中,政府将学生参与的政治抗议活动,解读为对美国外交政策的潜在威胁,这种逻辑的跳跃性令人质疑。

此外,这些案例也反映了政府在移民执法策略上的转变。过去,ICE通常不会在大学校园内进行执法,但现在,他们频繁出现在校园,逮捕国际学生。这不仅给大学带来了巨大的压力,也让国际学生感到不安和恐惧。

这些案例并非个例。我了解到,ICE已将目标扩大至全美多所大学的国际学生,包括乔治城大学、塔夫茨大学和康奈尔大学等。这表明,特朗普政府正在进行一场大规模的移民执法行动,其目标已不再局限于无证移民,而是扩展到那些被认为具有潜在“威胁”的合法居留者。这种做法不仅令人担忧,也给许多持有绿卡的合法居民带来了巨大的不确定性和恐惧。

最终,这些案例的核心问题在于:言论自由的界限究竟在哪里?政府是否可以利用移民执法来压制异见?这些问题需要我们认真思考和探讨。 政府对国际学生的严厉打压,不仅威胁着这些学生的未来,也对美国社会整体的言论自由和法治环境构成挑战。

Chapters
The Trump administration is targeting international students for deportation, focusing on those expressing views counter to U.S. foreign policy. This follows a campaign promise by President Trump to remove international students involved in protests. A task force was created to combat anti-Semitism and target college campuses.
  • Targeting of international students for deportation
  • Focus on those with views counter to U.S. foreign policy
  • Task force created to combat anti-Semitism and target college campuses

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From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. Today, the story of three Columbia students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration and why immigration arrests are happening at universities across the country. My colleague Hamed Aliaziz on what these cases reveal about the latest immigration crackdown and this administration's views on free speech.

It's Monday, March 31st. Hamed, it feels like you can't go more than a few days without hearing about another college campus or another college student that has been targeted by immigration officials. And one thing that seems to have been really making the rounds the last week is this video of a

A student at Tufts getting detained on the street by immigration agents. And it's kind of a shocking video. And her case feels like this larger pattern that we've been seeing recently with the targeting of students. And I want to talk to you about what is happening here and what your understanding is of this moment that we are in.

Yeah, definitely. We saw at the beginning of the Trump administration a real focus on cracking down and arresting undocumented immigrants in the country, particularly those with criminal histories. And at the same time, making a note that if you're undocumented in this country, we're going to come find you, we're going to come get you, and we're going to remove you from America.

But what's happening now is targeting of people who were legally in the country. They were here with student visas, in some cases with green cards. The Trump administration is looking to target individuals that they believe are spreading messages that they disagree with and they believe that are counter to the foreign policy interests of the United States. And this all actually starts with a talk by President Trump during his campaign, which

During that time, he was watching these protests at Columbia and... When I'm president, we will not allow our colleges to be taken over by violent radicals. He said that if there were any international students involved, their visas should be revoked.

and they should be removed from the United States. If you come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or anti-Semitism to our campuses, we will immediately deport you. You'll be out of that school.

And when he comes into office, quickly in those first few days where there's a dizzying number of executive orders, he deputizes the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to create a task force combating anti-Semitism and targeting college campuses as places of focus.

And we weren't clear how it was all going to play out. And in recent weeks, we've seen the Trump administration start to use those ideas to target students on college campuses. And I've been covering three of those cases involving students at Columbia that, taken together, I think paint a clearer picture of what the Trump administration is up to.

I have to assume that one of those cases is one of the first cases that we saw come out of all of this, the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student who was arrested on campus housing in early March. Definitely. His case was a massive news story when it first happened in early March. And people were trying to figure out, you know, why he was picked up. We learned from sources that actually Secretary of State Rubio

had issued a memo designating two people as deportable because of their protest activity. And one of those people was Mahmoud Khalil, a very visible protester on Columbia's campus.

You're going to be under arrest. So turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around. He was arrested on March 8th at his Columbia University apartment complex. Okay, okay, he's not resisting. He's giving me his phone, okay? Okay.

His wife actually videotaped the arrest. And in the video, you can see the plainclothes officers telling Mr. Khalil that he's going to be arrested, that they're going to be taking him away. At the same time, Mr. Khalil is telling his wife... Just call his lawyer.

Yeah, they just like handcuffed him and took him. I don't know what to do. He was picked up and sent to Louisiana, where he was detained in an ICE detention facility. And that's really striking because Khalil is not here on a visa. He actually has permanent residency and a green card. Can they do that? I mean, can they detain a green card holder? I remember when we first learned about this case, a lot of people, myself included, thought the answer was no.

Green card holders can be detained. After you receive your green card, you have to wait a certain number of years to receive your U.S. citizenship.

But during that time, you need to remain in good standing in the United States. And one of the things that oftentimes green card holders will be picked up by ICE for is committing certain crimes, you know, more serious crimes. In this case, obviously, there is no crime that's been pointed to by the U.S. government. Instead, it's this provision cited by Secretary of State Rubio. And what is the legal ground that Rubio is citing?

They arrested him under this provision in the immigration law that allows the Secretary of State to deem someone deportable if their continued presence in the United States undermines U.S. foreign policy.

And in the case of Mr. Jalil, they say that his involvement in protests at Columbia University was part of this anti-Semitic activity, and this undermines U.S. foreign policy interests of combating anti-Semitism across the world.

What they're referring to in some of these accusations seems to be a speech issue. I mean, I know they're talking about things that sound like terrorism, but they're really criticizing, it seems, his protest activity. And one thing I still don't quite understand about his story is this question of freedom of speech. Like, even though he's not a citizen, is he still entitled to the protections of a citizen because he's in this country? Yeah.

It's complicated. The Supreme Court has said that non-citizens do have the right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment, but the government has an immense amount of power to remove immigrants from the United States. And ultimately, anything outside of being a U.S. citizen is a privilege that can be revoked by the federal government. And in this case, the Trump administration is trying to say that

So basically, no, you don't ultimately have freedom of speech. Right.

Yeah, it's clear that they're targeting people for this type of speech, including Mr. Khalil, using every resource possible to pick him up and arrest him. Recently, they added allegations in his immigration case to try to deport him, saying that he had not disclosed past work. Right. It feels like they're basically trying everything to send a message. And moreover...

it kind of feels like his case is maybe potentially the beginning of something. Definitely. It feels like the beginning of this targeting of international students across the United States. And we quickly learned that there was another case of an international student at Columbia, but this was a student who was not someone who was as prominent as Mr. Khalil. Tell me about that case.

Her name is Ranjani Srinivasan, and she's a PhD student here on a student visa from India. And my colleague, Luis Ferre, gets on the phone with her and starts talking to her about her story and what she experienced. You know, she had received an email in early March saying,

from the State Department saying that her visa was revoked. And she's trying to figure out what's going on with her status in the United States. It's important to note that for international students here, that's a very serious issue.

issue. And so there's a lot of stress involved with that. Around that time, ICE comes to her door. Does Ranjani live here? Her roommate actually is at the door and starts a recording. I do not consent to answering any questions, but have a good day. Hey, Ranjani, if this is you, listen, we were here yesterday. We're here today. We're going to be here tonight, tomorrow.

You're probably scared. If you are, I get it. And they're seeking to pick her up. The reality is your visa was revoked. OK, you are now amenable to removal proceedings. OK, if you'd like to have it. Does she know why ICE agents are at her door? Does she know why they're trying to get her?

She doesn't, but eventually she realizes that she's likely being targeted because she was swept up during the increase in protests on Columbia's campus. She had been arrested amongst another group of protesters in the area, but she says she was arrested during a time when she was trying to get home. She was working her way back to her house, and she was picked up by police at the time.

Now, those charges were eventually dropped, so she didn't really make much of a deal of it at the time. And she didn't disclose it on her visa paperwork. But ultimately, the U.S. government cites that as the reason for her visa being revoked.

Okay, wait, so to be clear, was she protesting that day? Like, was she a protester at all? She says that this was really merely her trying to get home and getting through this crowd, and the police come and arrest her. She described herself as a lazy protester.

She did post stuff online in support of pro-Palestine efforts, but that was the extent of it. And she sees what's happened to Mr. Khalil and doesn't want to be swept up by ICE and targeted for detention in an ICE detention center. And she decides to leave the country, to go to Canada and to avoid all of that.

She self-deports. That self-deportation, that actually feels like it's one of the administration's goals here, right? Like getting people to flee on their own. Definitely. Self-deportation is a major goal of the Trump administration. There is no feasible way for them to deport millions of people without major numbers of immigrants self-deporting, leaving the country, boosting to those numbers that President Trump has said he will hit.

This is something that is constantly talked about with the Trump administration, which is, "Leave before we come and find you." And in this case, it seemed to have worked. She saw what happened to Mr. Khalil and did not want to end up like him, being sent to an ICE detention center.

This case shows us that the government is claiming these broad deportation powers and attempting to use those powers to deport international students here to study in the United States. Then we heard about another case, a third case involving another university student that really surprised people who've been following immigration and immigration enforcement for years. We'll be right back.

Hi, this is Sydney Harper and I help make the daily. One night, it's 10 p.m. My colleagues working on the next day's episode are looking for a speech, this piece of tape that they really need to make the episode sing. They've tracked it down to a university library and that library happens to be close to my house. So I hop into a car, I head across town...

I get to the library. They're about to close. I'm copying the tape, uploading it into my computer, sending it off to my colleagues working on the episode. It makes it into the show the next day. It really helps make it shine. The whole effort is a success.

And I'm telling you this because I don't think people realize that that level of teamwork and dedication goes into every episode that you hear on The Daily. That sort of collaboration takes people. It takes resources. It takes support from subscribers. So that's why I'm asking you to subscribe to The New York Times so we can keep bringing you The Daily every day.

Hamed, you've just explained these two cases that help us understand how the administration is really testing all these new theories about how to get people out of the country. Tell us about that third case you just mentioned. Definitely. This third case, it's a 21-year-old student, Yoon So Chung, who grew up in America, essentially. She was born in Korea, but she came to the United States at age seven.

And she lived her life in America. Her whole community is here. Her family is here. Her parents are here. She went through high school in America where she became a valedictorian. Essentially, her home is the United States. And that is something that her lawyers really emphasized in their lawsuit against the U.S. government.

This isn't someone who came here specifically to go to school and then plans to head back home. Exactly. I think it's significant for, you know, emotional reasons because she has such deep ties to this country. She went to high school in the United States. She has a network in the United States. But I think more importantly...

it undercuts the Trump administration's argument with these arrests. The Trump administration has said that these people who are coming to study in the United States are guests in our country. And while they're here, it's not appropriate for them to cause a ruckus on our campuses and cause conflict.

But in this case, Chung is not, for all intents and purposes, a temporary guest who just came to the United States. She's been here since she was seven years old. Mm-hmm. So how does it become clear that she's being targeted? Can you kind of walk us through her story a little bit? Yeah, so earlier this month in March, she attended a sit-in on Columbia University's campus, and she was arrested by police alongside other college protesters.

And soon after that, ICE shows up to her parents' house. Around the same time that the ICE officer showed up to Chung's house, she received a text message from an unknown number, and it said, quote, this is Audrey from the police. My job is to reach out to you and see if you have any questions about your recent arrests and the process going forward.

A federal prosecutor speaks with her attorney saying that the State Department has revoked her status and that the government is trying to find her and detain her. They're really using all the resources that the government has to try to arrest her. I think that's a really important point to make because, look, ICE arrests are really difficult.

They have to expend a lot of resources and research and surveillance to know when people are going to be around to show up, to arrest them, and take them away. They're using all these various levers of government power to try to locate her. And that's a lot of resources for a government that's incredibly strained for resources in trying to reach these high numbers of deportations. Every resource matters.

And they're using it on a college student who's been in the country since she was seven years old. So where is she now? We don't know. Her lawyers have not told us where she is, but they say that she is in the United States. Because she's concerned about having her location disclosed. That is a fair assumption.

Right. And it feels worth noting, actually, that these aggressive tactics kind of come back to this whole messaging element of the administration's tactic here. Like, they're trying to send a message that we will come for you, we will find you. And that also helps...

kind of put the fear into people that would lead them to self-deport, which is another huge element to the administration's approach to all of this. And it feels like this is all much broader than just what's happening at Columbia. Totally. We've seen ICE target international students across the country, including at Georgetown, of course, with the case at Tufts with the Turkish international students.

and at Cornell as well. And it's becoming pretty clear that this is a part of the Trump administration's new phase of their immigration crackdown.

Let me just send this message out. If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell... Marco Rubio, Trump's Secretary of State, has spoken very publicly about this new phase. 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. Is there some advantage to targeting students in particular or people who are here on student visas or green cards? Well...

People here on student visas are in regular contact with the U.S. government. They are constantly updating their information with the U.S. government to remain in status.

This is something that they do willingly and proactively because they want to pursue their education in the United States. So there is a whole wealth of information about where these people are. You can just look at where they're studying, right? I mean, they are much easier to find than compared to undocumented immigrants who oftentimes will remain under the radar and try to avoid interacting with the government for fear of

of being picked up by ICE and arrested. These are individuals who have shared a lot of information with the U.S. government. And I think in many ways, it confirms a lot of fears that people have that when you share so much information with the government, you inevitably become easier to find and detain.

It really feels ironic the way that you're explaining it, that the people that are most deportable are actually people that are in the system, following the rules, going through the procedures, as opposed to people who are undocumented. It also feels worth saying that these schools where ICE is targeting students, they don't really seem to be going out of their way to fight it.

This is a new test for them. This is not something that they've seen in the past where you have ICE officers on campuses. It's important to note here that previous to the Trump administration, there were actually guidelines in place for ICE to not enforce on campuses. So this is a new front in that respect.

And at the same time, universities are under immense pressure from the Trump administration targeting their funding, targeting their practices. Colombia in particular has been under attack. So when it comes to these cases, they're in many ways taking a hands-off approach.

At this point, does it feel like the Trump administration's arrest of these students will hold up an immigration court? Like, basically, are these laws, which in some cases are arcane or kind of obscure, do you think that those will be compelling enough?

So two things. One, the State Department has wide powers to revoke people's student visas, and that's going to be a particularly difficult case for those individuals who are here simply on student visas trying to remain in the United States. It's going to be an uphill battle in immigration court. But when it comes to the provision being used against the green card holders,

This idea that the Secretary of State can deem someone deportable, remove them from the United States because they undermine foreign policy interests, that's been tested before in immigration courts. And actually, the Board of Immigration Appeals at the time in the 90s

upheld the U.S. government's efforts to deport a high-ranking Mexican official to Mexico. But that was a very different case. This is a very different situation, so it's unclear. I mean, that's actually something that I wanted to ask you about, because we've talked a lot so far about how some of these cases feel surprising or extreme. But I just want to make sure I understand, how do these cases fit into what we've seen historically?

Yeah, there have been several times in American history where the government has been much tougher on immigration. But you don't have to look back that far. You can point to this time after 9-11, this era where DHS was born in the wake of that terrorist attack.

We saw at that time targeting of Muslim immigrants who were here on student visas, who were swept up in this increased immigration enforcement because there was a real fear around Muslim immigrants who were here on visas because, of course, the 9-11 attackers had arrived as well on visas.

And I think it also fits into this context of the government talking about these people as potential threats, right? I mean, we see that the White House has said that Khalil is aligned with Hamas, a terrorist group. And we've seen them call Srinivasan a terrorist sympathizer.

we're seeing almost the same type of language being used to describe the immigrants who are being picked up right now as we saw during that time in the post-9-11 era.

I realize that the government might claim that the people it is targeting, in some cases at least, are supporting terrorist activity. And so it's totally fair to use the language of the 9-11 terrorists. But it really feels like a huge stretch to say that somebody who wrote an op-ed is comparable to somebody who flies a plane into the World Trade Center. And so it can't help but feel like this is not

as much about terrorism as it is about free speech. And if that is the case, and if you agree with that premise, it feels like we are escalating in one direction. And I am curious what you think that that crackdown looks like to you in the next four years. Yeah, already people here on legal status who have green cards are certainly terrified. There's a lot of uncertainty amongst green card holders about what these cases mean for themselves.

We're not even 100 days in and we're already seeing green card holders picked up and these types of incredibly powerful images of students arrested on their campuses. And as far as what comes next, I think it's fair to say that anything is possible, right? We saw in the first administration there was an effort to expand denaturalization of U.S. citizens.

I think we can expect more of those types of efforts and others that we're not aware of at this moment. Hamed, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. We'll be right back.

Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes, and today I'm making my vegetarian mushroom shawarma pitas. This recipe is just built for efficiency. You toss your mushrooms and red onion in your spices, throw them in the oven. By the time they're done, you've chopped your cabbage, and you're ready to assemble. It feels crazy that this takes just 20 minutes of active time. It's just delicious. New York Times Cooking has you covered with easy dishes for busy weeknights. You can find more at NYTCooking.com.

Here's what else you need to know today. President Trump said in an interview with NBC on Sunday that he was, quote, not joking about possibly seeking a third term. It was the most serious he's been about an idea that he's mused about in the past, and it would run afoul of the 22nd Amendment. But Trump said that there were, quote, methods to extend his presidency.

President Trump also told NBC News that he would not fire anyone involved in a group chat that inadvertently disclosed plans for airstrikes on Yemen to a journalist. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Jessica Chung, Shannon Lin, Carlos Prieto, and Rochelle Boncha. It was edited by MJ Davis-Lynn, Paige Cowett, and Brendan Klinkenberg. It contains original music by Dan Powell and Pat McCusker and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.

And now, a next-level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day. You've got AT&T 5G, so you're fully confident. But the vendor isn't responding, and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more at att.com slash 5G network.

We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!

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