Trump's War on International Students

I have written several posts about attempts by the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to remove international students from the United States. Initially, this was advertised as a policy aimed at students who had participated in protests opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza or who had displayed antisemitism. However, the administration's actions have been heavy-handed and, as is typical of this administration, frequently incompetent. After the initial removal attempts, the effort has grown much wider and ensnared many students who have had nothing to do with protests or antisemitism. Moreover, it appears that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have behaved deceptively at times in an effort to essentially trick students into leaving the country.

The first high-profile arrest was that of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University protest spokesperson. Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the United States who is married to an American citizen. While he was arrested in New York, he was quickly whisked away to New Jersey and then to Louisiana. His lawyer filed a habeas petition in New York, but the case was later transferred to New Jersey where the case is ongoing. In Louisiana, Khalil was brought before an immigration judge who ruled that he could be deported. It is important to understand that immigration judges are not members of the judiciary branch. Rather, they are executive branch employees who have very limited authority. At the hearing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided a letter confirming that none of Khalil's actions had violated the law and that Rubio had simply determined that his presence in the U.S. would have an adverse "foreign policy consequence". Khalil will appeal this ruling and, in the meantime, his case in New Jersey continues.

Soon after Khalil's arrest, masked agents grabbed Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk off of a street in Massachusetts and hustled her into an unmarked car. She was quickly moved to Vermont and then on to Louisiana. The reason for Öztürk's arrest is not clear. She was not a student protester and had committed no crimes. Her one transgression appears to have been coauthoring an article that called on Tufts to recognize the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Department of Homeland Security official Andre Watson drafted a memo to State Department official John Armstrong recommending the cancellation of Öztürk's visa in which he used language word-for-word that appeared on the website of Canary Mission, an anonymous pro-Israel group that has compiled a "blacklist" of students. This suggests that DHS is doing little more than chasing after students blacklisted by Canary Mission. For its part, Tufts University issued a statement defending Öztürk, saying that the op-ed article she coauthored did not violate university policies and that the university could find no information that "she has acted in a manner that would constitute a violation of the University's understanding of the Immigration and Naturalization Act." The statement went on to urge that Öztürk be "released without delay so that she can return to complete her studies and finish her degree".

In the most recent arrest, Trump administration officials arrested another Columbia University student, Mohsen Mahdawi. Like Khalil, Mahdawi is a legal permanent resident. Mahdawi has been going through the process to become a U.S. citizen and was waiting for his citizenship interview, which had been delayed several times. When it was finally scheduled, he went to his appointment only to be arrested by ICE agents. Mahdawi was apparently prepared for such an eventuality, and his lawyer filed a habeas petition before ICE could secret him away to Louisiana. As a result, he is currently being held in Vermont. As in the other cases, Mahdawi is not accused of any crimes. Mahdawi is a Palestinian, born in the West Bank, and was active in protests at Columbia. However, he had a particular interest in reaching out to those who supported Israel and, especially, Israelis. Mikey Baratz, a fellow Columbia student who is Israeli, was quoted by the New York Times as saying, "This is a Palestinian. I’m an Israeli. Our people are at war... and his willingness to actually hear and actively learn and understand the Israeli experience — I mean, I’ve never met anyone who so quickly was willing to take feedback." Mahdawi also appeared on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" where he spoke out strongly against antisemitism, saying that it was incompatible with the Palestinian cause. Mahdawi is exactly the sort of student that the U.S. should want to encourage rather than arrest and deport.

The Trump administration's attempts to remove students go far beyond those active in demonstrations. According to a report by the Associated Press, "At least 901 students at 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since mid-March". Most of these cancellations have followed the same pattern: ICE officials quietly update the student's record in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) to show that the student's visa has been canceled. At that point, the student has 15 days to leave the country. One concern about this process is that ICE does not notify the student, leaving them susceptible to arbitrary arrest in the manner of Khalil, Öztürk, and Mahdawi. In some cases, colleges and universities have been preemptively checking SEVIS for their students' status. Some colleges have immediately unenrolled students whose SEVIS status was changed and told them that they must immediately leave the country. ICE does not reveal the reason for these cancellations, and students have been left to guess. In many cases, it appears to be due to nothing other than a traffic violation, often many years in the past. Some students have filed lawsuits challenging their visa cancellations, arguing that ICE has no right to cancel their visas. In a strange turn of events, DHS officials agree. In several court cases, DHS officials have argued that cancelling a visa in SEVIS does not change their actual immigration status. For instance, in a case before the District Court for the District of Columbia, Senior Homeland Security Investigations official Andre Watson submitted a declaration saying:

"Terminating a record in SEVIS does not terminate an individual’s nonimmigrant status in the United States. The statute and regulations do not provide [the Student Exchange Visitor Program (‘SEVP’)] the authority to terminate nonimmigrant status by terminating a SEVIS record, and SEVP has never claimed that it had terminated [the plaintiff’s] nonimmigrant status. Furthermore, the authority to issue or revoke visas for nonimmigrant students like [the plaintiff] lies with the Department of State, not SEVP. Terminating a record within SEVIS does not effectuate a visa revocation."

This means that students have been wrongly informed that their visas have been revoked, and some schools have wrongly unenrolled students. I find it hard to believe that this deceptive practice was not intentional. The only explanation I have for what is happening is that some Trump officials simply have a pathological hatred of foreigners and want them to leave the country regardless of what that requires.

With regard to students, the Trump administration has attempted to follow a very common pattern among authoritarian regimes. They first aim autocratic policies at marginalized individuals who are unlikely to have much support among the general population. Once that policy is normalized, it is extended to a broader circle. Eventually, it can be used routinely and simply becomes an accepted practice. The Trump administration, almost always incompetent, screwed this up. First, they targeted Mahmoud Khalil, who officials wrongly believed was here on a student visa rather than a green card. They apparently believed that he could be portrayed as a terrorism-supporting antisemite and quickly deported. Instead, his legal permanent resident status conferred additional rights and has enabled him to seek relief in the courts. Next, Homeland Security agents managed to portray themselves as a modern-day Gestapo by sending masked agents to seize Rümeysa Öztürk, someone that nobody believes is a threat. Leave it to the Trump administration to deploy Keystone ICE agents. Now, DHS is finding itself testifying in court that it cannot legally do exactly what it has been trying to convince students that it has done. Trump has promised to fire officials who are incompetent. As such, he could probably just throw a dart at a DHS personnel roster and hit an eligible target. As much as I would simply like to point and laugh at these escapades, real people's lives are being disrupted and the actions are going to have severe consequences for America's future. In the final irony that I will describe today, Marco Rubio recently told Mike Benz the following:

Yeah, so the first thing obviously is our number one priority is Americans. So we don’t want to see an American who happens to be living in London or happens to be living in Europe post something online about American politics or any politics, and all of a sudden they’re facing ramifications over there or they’re denied entry and something happens – “Oh, we’re denying them into our country or we’re going to arrest them because they posted something while living overseas.”

Just to be clear, Rubio's "number one priority" is preventing other countries from doing to Americans exactly what Rubio has been doing to foreign students in this country. Has there ever been a bigger fool in the U.S. government than Rubio?

Update: In another case illustrating the braindead actions being taken by Secretary of Deportations Marco Rubio, the Deseret News reports on a Japanese Ph.D student at Brigham Young University. Six years ago the student organized a fishing trip for his Latter-day Saint church group. He didn't catch a fish himself, but others in the group caught more than allowed. The student, as the organizer of the event, was cited and went to court where the charges were dropped. Now his visa has been revoked (though he may want to confirm that with the State Department since this may be a case where ICE simply changed his status in SEVIS).