US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday arrested another Palestinian who participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and announced the self-deportation to India of another student whose visa had been revoked in 2022.
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was arrested by ICE agents after overstaying her expired F-1 student visa, which was terminated in 2022 for lack of attendance. Kordia was arrested in April of 2024 for her “involvement in pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University,” according to DHS’s statement.
Additionally, the agency stated that another student of Columbia University had her student visa revoked for “advocating violence and terrorism,” and later self-deported using the CPB Home App. Ranjani Srinivasaj, a national of India, was a doctoral student at Columbia University on a F-1 student visa.
According to Kristi Noem, secretary of Homeland Security, “when you advocate for violence and terrorism,” the privilege of having a visa to live and study in the US should be revoked, referring to Srinivasaj’s self-deportation.
These arrests are a continuation of ICE actions at Columbia University, with Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of the pro-Palestinian protests on campus, arrested inside a residence owned by the university. Khalil’s arrest stirred controversy following ICE agents’ confusion surrounding his immigration status, raising concerns over violations of the First and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) strongly condemned Khalil’s arrest as unlawful, stating that the First Amendment protects everyone in the US and that the actions of the government are trying to “intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate.”
Authorities’ immigration actions have garnered criticism from those who opposed campus protests, with Wesleyan University President Michael Roth asserting that the content of one’s views, unless proven to be harassing and intimidating, should not be a reason for restrictions.
The ruling in the 1953 Supreme Court case Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding protects immigrants’ Constitutional rights. The court held, “once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country, he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders.” In the following decades, the court extended the rights to due process of law under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment to all aliens living in the United States, including those who entered unlawfully.