The first knock on the door came eight days ago, on Friday morning.
Three federal immigration agents appeared in an apartment at Columbia University looking for Ranjani Srinivasan, who had recently learned that his student visa had been revoked. Ms Srinivasan, an international student from India, did not open the door.
It was not a home when the agents appeared again the following night, just hours before a former Columbia student living on campus, Mahmoud Halil was held, overturning the university. Mrs Srinivasan Package Some items left her cat back with a friend and jumped on a flight to Canada at Laguardia Airport.
When the agents returned for the third time, last Thursday night and entered her apartment with a court order, she was gone.
“The atmosphere seemed so unstable and dangerous,” said Srinivasan, 37, on Friday in an interview with the New York Times, her first public observations since they left. “So I made a quick decision.”
Ms Srinivasan, a Fulbright recipient, who was involved in a doctorate in urban planning, was caught in the Dragnet of President Trump’s repression in pre-Palestinian protesters through the use of federal immigration forces. It is one of the handfuls of non -citizens that the Migration and Customs Service has targeted Columbia in recent days.
The week since the first knocked on the door, Ms Srinivasan says she has struggled to understand why the Foreign Ministry abruptly recalled her student visa without explanation, leading Columbia to withdraw her enrollment from the university because her legal status was finished.
On Friday, taking into account its future in Canada, she received some answers.
The Ministry of Interior issued a statement describing Mrs Srinivasan as a terrorist compatriot and accused her of supporting violence and “involved in activities that support Hamas, a terrorist organization”. The section did not provide evidence for its allegations.
Kristi Noem, the Minister of Interior, posted social media surveillance videos that showed that Mrs Srinivasan had a suitcase in Laguardia as she left Canada. The Secretary Noem celebrated Ms Srinivasan’s departure as “self-revolution”.
“It is a privilege to receive a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” the Noem secretary wrote in X. “When you support violence and terrorism that the privilege must be revoked and you should not be in that country.”
Ms Srinivasan’s lawyers strongly denied these allegations and accused Trump’s administration of discovering her visa to take on “protected political discourse”, saying that she denied “any essential form of the fair process” to challenge the revocation of theory.
“Noem’s tweet is not only wrong, but virtually non -American,” said Naz Ahmed, one of Ms Srinivasan’s lawyers, adding: “For at least a week, DHS made it clear its intention to punish her for her speech and failed in their efforts.”
Answering questions, officials with the Department of Internal Security said that when Ms Srinivasan renewed her visa last year, he failed to reveal two court calls about protests on Columbia campus. The section did not say that her calls made a terrorist sympathy.
“I am afraid that even the most political speech of low levels or just does what we all do-as we call it to Abysso who is social media-can turn into this dystopian nightmare where someone invites you to a terrorist sympathy and make you literally fear for you.”
Ms Srinivasan’s current situation may be detected last year when he was arrested on the Campus of Columbia on the same day, pre-Palestinian protesters occupied Hamilton Hall, a university building. She said she was not part of the break, but returned to her apartment that night after a picnic with friends, passing through a multitude of demonstrators and roadblocks on the west 116th Street, when police pushed her and arrested her.
He had been held briefly and received two calls, one to prevent the traffic or pedestrian traffic and others who refused to be dispersed. Her case was quickly rejected and did not lead to a criminal record, according to her lawyers and courts. Ms Srinivasan said she had never encountered disciplinary action by the university and was in good academic condition.
“She was taken with about 100 other people after being blocked from returning to her apartment and sticking to the street,” said Nathan Yaffe, one of her lawyers. “The court recognized it when she rejected her case as no value. Ranjani was just trying to walk home.”
Ms Srinivasan said she did not reveal the calls to the form of renewal later in the year because her case had been rejected in May and had no conviction.
“Because I didn’t and the accusations were rejected, I described it as ‘no,’ he said. ‘But maybe that was my mistake. I would be happy to reveal it, but just as they were challenged, assuming you were convinced.’
The Foreign Ministry has a wide discretion to recall students’ visas, which it usually does if one exceeds or the government discovers fraud. Conquerors and arrests can also lead to recall. Immigration lawyers said it was extremely unusual for ICE to go down to college campuses looking for students with recent revoked visas, as the organization has been in Columbia in recent days, hitting many students.
“It is rarer for the government to act as it is, as in the case of the University of Columbia, where they go to campus and conduct a business to arrest someone,” said Greg Chen, a lawyer for the US Association of Migration Lawyers.
Targeting the administration of Trump of students with visas at a university surrounded by a cultural fire has opened a new front in the president’s efforts to increase deportations and flood pre-Palestinian views. The president canceled a $ 400 million grants at the university after accusing him of failing to protect Jewish students. The arrests and attempts of Columbia students have led to disruption between democratic and civil rights groups.
Jason Houser, a senior ice officer during Biden’s administration, said that “criminalizing freedom of speech through the radical imposition of immigration is an immediate attack on our Republic.”
Last week, Ice captured Mr Khalil, a green card holder who had become a leading face of pre-Palestinian protests in Columbia. Mr Trump greeted the arrest as “the first of the many to come”. On Friday, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced that it had arrested Leqaa Kordia, who had been involved in protests in Columbia. Federal officials said it had overcome its view and had previously been arrested in Columbia’s protest in April.
Unlike Mr Khalil, Ms Srinivasan said she was not an activist or a member of any team that organized demonstrations on campus.
Ms Srinivasan said she was an architect who came to the United States from India under the Fulbright program in 2016 and that it was enrolled in Columbia in 2020.
She said that her social media activity was mostly confined to the love or exchange of positions that underlined the “human rights violations” in the Gaza war. And he said that he had signed several open letters related to war, including one of the architecture scholars who demanded “Palestinian liberation”.
“I’m just surprised to be a man of interest,” he said. “I’m a bit rando, like an absolute rando,” he said, using slang for accident.
It was on March 5 when he received an email from the US Consulate in Chennai, India, indicating that her visa had been revoked. The notice did not provide a reason, only saying that “information has come to light” that can make it unmistakable for visa.
Confused, he sent Columbia email to international students the next day looking for guidance. An employee informed her that the recall would only come into force if she left the country and that she could remain in the United States to continue her studies at present, according to emails revised by the Times.
The next morning, on March 7, Ms Srinivasan was on a call with an employee from the International Student Bureau when the federal agents first knocked on the door of her apartment, which is outside the campus but operated by Columbia. The official told Ms Srinivasan to invite campus security, while her roommate deals with the agents behind the closed door of the apartment.
In an interview, the roommate told her that the agents had initially been recognized as “Police”, refused to provide the mark numbers, saying they were afraid they would be glorified and stood on the door side so that they were not visible through the hole. The roommate, a colleague of Columbia who talked about the condition of anonymity for fear of her safety, said the concierge of the building, who is an immigrant, later told her that she had left the three agents in the building because she was afraid.
Ms Srinivasan left the apartment that night, so she wasn’t there when the officials returned the following night. Her roommate once again refused to open the door to leave them and record the sound of the interaction, which she shared with the time.
“We were here yesterday,” says one of the officials, believing she was talking to Ms Srinivasan because the roommate had not identified herself. “We’re here today. We’re here tonight. Tomorrow. You’re probably scared. If you are, I understand it. The reality is that your visa was recalled. Now you are skilled in abstraction processes. ”
The employee stressed that he and his colleagues were not trying to break the law that he would have the right to proceed with an immigration judge and left a phone number for the internal security department he could call if he had a “heart change”.
“This is the easiest and fastest way to do this, as opposed to being in your apartment and knocking on your door every day, which is just foolish,” he said. “You’re a very smart person. It’s not just – it’s not worth it. ”
The next day, Ms Srinivasan received an email from Columbia, saying that the homeland had notified the university that her view had been revoked and her legal status in the country had been terminated. Because she had to leave the United States immediately, e -mail said her registration in Columbia had retired and had to abandon students’ housing.
The email, signed by the University’s International Student Office, said that, according to his legal obligations, Columbia asked her to meet with internal security agents. The university refused to comment on the case of Ms Srinivasan.
On Thursday night, three federal agents returned to Ms Srinivasan’s apartment with a investigation signed by a judge and entered to search for her, according to her roommate and lawyers.
Until then, Ms Srinivasan was already in Canada.
Edward Wong They contributed reports. Alain delaquérière He contributed research.
