A Cornell University PhD student earlier this month sued the Trump administration seeking to stop the president’s order aimed at foreign students accused of “antisemitism”. Days later, lawyers at the justice department emailed to request that the student “surrender” to immigration officials.
Momodou Taal, a dual citizen of the UK and Gambia, is one of three Cornell students who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to block the enforcement of Trump executive orders aimed at deporting foreign university students and staff involved in pro-Palestinian protests.
“Only in a dictatorship can the leader jail and banish political opponents for criticizing his administration,” Taal, 31, wrote in a statement accompanying the lawsuit, which was submitted by lawyers at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a civil rights group, on 15 March.
Taal is pursuing a PhD at Cornell’s Africana Studies and Research Center, and was an outspoken activist on Cornell’s campus. He was suspended last year for his role in anti-Zionist protests at the university.
On Wednesday, he wrote on X that he believed that, days after filing the lawsuit, “law enforcement from an unidentified agency” came to his home seeking to detain him. His lawyers then submitted a motion to stop the government from “attempting to detain, remove, or otherwise enforce the two executive orders against Mr Taal”. The court had ordered the government to respond to the request by 5pm on Saturday.
In an email sent to Taal’s attorneys early Friday morning, a justice department lawyer wrote: “ICE invites Mr Taal and his counsel to appear in-person” at the homeland security investigations Office in Syracuse “at a mutually agreeable time” to be served a “notice to appear” – the first step in the formal process of deportation – and to surrender to immigration authorities.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment, and did not explain its reasoning in requesting surrender from Taal while he has a pending request for a restraining order.
“Lawyers at the so-called Justice Department made this request to his attorneys within hours of us having asked the court to stop them from doing precisely that,” Lee told the Guardian. “It’s very difficult to explain how unprecedented this is.
“This is something that should shock everybody. The most fundamental right in a democracy is the right to seek redress for grievances against the government,” Lee added. “God knows where they would send [Taal], simply because he decided to access the federal courts with American citizen colleagues to challenge whether what Trump is doing is legal or not.”
In the lawsuit against the administration, Taal’s lawyers write that “he lives in constant fear that he may be arrested by immigration officials or police as a result of his speech”; he has had to cancel international speaking engagements; and he is fearful of traveling to London to visit family.
His complaint comes just weeks after the high-profile arrest of Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, and amid a series of escalating actions seeking to quell pro-Palestinian discourse at universities.
The other two plaintiffs in the case are both US citizens – Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ, a professor in the English department, and Sriram Parasuram, a PhD student in the School of Integrative Plant Science. Their complaint asserts that the administration’s crackdown on protestors “has unconstitutionally silenced plaintiffs and chilled protected expression, prohibiting them from speaking, hearing, or engaging with viewpoints critical of the US government or the government of Israel”.
Taal was suspended twice by Cornell last year for alleged disruptive protest and was told that his suspension could result in him losing his visa, but he was eventually allowed to resume attending classes remotely.
He has faced criticism for online comments after the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. He posted soon after the attack: “Wherever you have oppression, you will find those who fighting against it. Glory to the resistance!”
In an interview with CNN in 2023, he said it was racist and Islamophobic “that before I’m allowed to have a view on genocide, I have to condemn a terrorist organization … I can say clearly categorically I abhor the killing of all civilians no matter where they are and who does it.”
Over the past week, judges have blocked the government from deporting Khalil and an Indian national at Georgetown University whose wife is of Palestinian heritage. Both academics, alongside Taal, were among the many pro-Palestinian voices targeted by a hardline pro-Israel social media account. The accounts have publicized the names and locations of numerous students and flagged US officials in posts, encouraging arrests and deportations.
