‘The atmosphere seemed so volatile, dangerous’: Indian doctoral student who ‘self -sport’ of us

Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student from Columbia University who chose to “deport” after his visa was revoked, has described the terrifying moment when federal immigration agents first called for the door of their university apartment.

Immigration agents were LOOKING FOR SRINIVASAN, 37, who recently learned of his student visa had been revoked. Srinivasan, an international doctoral student from India, did not open the door when the three immigration agents hit him, the New York Times reported.

She was not at home when the agents appeared again the next night. He packed some belongings, left his cat with a friend and jumped to a flight to Canada at Laguardia airport, the report added.

When the agents returned for the third time, on Thursday night he passed and entered his department with a court order, she left.

“The atmosphere seemed so volatile and dangerous,” Srinivasan told New York Times in an interview published on Friday, his first public comments since he left. “Then, I just made a quick decision.”

The State Department had revoked Srinivasan’s visa on March 5. The National Security Department said it obtained Srinivan video images using the Home Application of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to sport itself on March 11.

His visa was revoked by “advocating violence and terrorism” and participation in activities that support the Palestinian militant group.

She entered the United States with an F-1 student visa as a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University, the National Security Department in a statement said Friday. He added that Srinivasan was “involved in activities that support” Hamas, a terrorist organization in the United States.

Srinivasan, an Fulbright recipient, was caught in the base of President Trump’s repression against pro-Palestinian protesters through the use of federal immigration powers. She is one of the few non -citizens that the Customs Immigration and Control Agency has attacked in Columbia in recent days, Nyt reported.

In the week from that first blow to the door, Srinivasan says that he has struggled to understand why the State Department abruptly revoked his student’s visa without explanation, which led Columbia to withdraw his registration from the university because his legal status had been completed.

Since he left the United States last week, Srinivasan says that his registration has been revoked without the explanation of the university and that he is not sure if he can complete the title in which he has been working during the last five years.

“Revoing my visa and then losing the state of my student has turned my life and my future, not for any irregularity, but because I exercised my right to freedom of expression,” Srinivasan said in a statement to CNN.

Columbia University declined to comment on a request on the registration of Srinivasan.

Kristi Noem, the Secretary of National Security, published surveillance images on social networks that showed Srinivas, carrying a suitcase in Laguardia while running to Canada, the newspaper reported.

Noem celebrated Srinivasan’s departure as a “self -sports.”

“It is a privilege to be given a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” Noem wrote in X. “When you advise violence and terrorism, that privilege must be revoked and you should not be in this country.”

The lawyers of Srinivasan have vehemently denied these accusations and have accused the Trump administration of revoking their visa for participating in the “protected political discourse”, saying that “any significant form of due process” was denied to challenge the revocation of the visa. “

“Noem’s publication on X is not only factically incorrect, but fundamentally not American,” said Naz Ahmad, one of Srinivasan’s lawyers, said in a statement, and added: “For at least a week, DHS has made clear his intention to punish her for his speech, and have failed in his efforts.”

In response to the questions, the officials of the Department of National Security said that when Srinivasan renewed his visa last year, he did not reveal two judicial citations related to the protests on the Columbia campus.

The department did not say how the calls made her a terrorist sympathizer. “I am afraid that even the lowest low -level political discourse or simply doing what we all do, such as shouting in the abyss that is the social network, can become this dystopian nightmare where someone calls you terrorist sympathizer and literally makes you fear your life and your security,” Srinivasan said in the interview on Friday.

The orientation of Trump administration students with visas at a university wrapped in a cultural fire storm opened a new front in the president’s attempts to increase deportations and reduce pro-palestinian opinions, the NYT reported.

The president canceled $ 400 million in subsidies to the university after accusing it of not protecting Jewish students.