An international graduate student at Cornell University filed a lawsuit Saturday to block enforcement of two White House executive orders that, he fears, could result in his deportation from the US for pro-Palestinian activism.
The suit was filed by Momodou Taal, a doctoral student in Africana studies at Cornell and an outspoken critic of US policy in West Asia. It cites a threat made by Trump after the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of Columbia University and legal US resident whom the administration is trying to deport. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after federal agents picked up Khalil at his New York City apartment March 8. Trump called pro-Palestinian activists like Khalil “terrorist sympathizers” and said “we will find, apprehend and deport” them, “never to return again.” Another Columbia student, Leqaa Kordia, was detained for overstaying her visa.
The lawsuit asks for national injunctions to block two executive orders issued in Feb. Both are aimed at the removal or arrest of pro-Palestinian activists or anyone else whom the administration deems guilty of anti-semitic speech. A hearing could be held Monday, according to Taal’s lawyer, Eric Lee. Two other plaintiffs – a professor and another student at Cornell both American citizens – joined Taal in the suit, arguing that the orders chill their rights to free speech.
Taal, 31, is a citizen of both Gambia and the UK. He has become known on the Cornell campus in Ithaca, New York, as a leading pro-Palestinian voice. In the lawsuit, Taal argues his activism has made him a target of the Trump administration’s plans, based partly on a list that was circulated by a pro-Zionist group, Betar. nyt
