Ice requests Cornell student who sued Trump administration to ‘surrender’ to immigration authorities

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, the Department of Homeland Security 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 protest.

“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 16 March.

Taal is pursuing a PhD in 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 last year.

On Wednesday, he wrote on X that days after filing the lawsuit, he believed that “law enforcement from an unidentified agency” had come 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”.

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 DHS 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.

“When we asked the court to enjoin the administration from detaining Mr Taal as the case progresses, the administration responded by ordering him to surrender to Ice,” Taal’s lawyer Eric Lee wrote in a statement. “This does not happen in a democracy. We are outraged and every American should be too.”

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,” that he has had to cancel international speaking engagements and 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.”

Taal’s lawyers did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for further comment.

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.