Cornell University Ph.D. Student Leaves U.S. After Visa Is Revoked Over Palestine Protests
Last fall, Momodou Taal, a dual Gambian and U.K. citizen working toward a Ph.D. in Africana studies at Cornell University, was facing suspension and the loss of his F-1 student visa because he had attended a pro-Palestine campus demonstration. As he told Rolling Stone at the time, having his legal status revoked would have been tantamount to an effective deportation, with no grace period for leaving the country.
In the end, facing significant public pressure from the student body and beyond, Cornell backed down on its threat and allowed Taal to remain enrolled at the school. But months later, with the Trump administration brazenly arresting foreign campus activists who accuse Israel of committing genocide in their bombardment of Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, Taal had his visa revoked by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents — and shortly afterward announced that he had opted to leave the United States for his own safety.
“This of course is not the outcome I had wanted going into this, but we are facing a government that has no respect for the judiciary or the rule of law,” Taal wrote in a statement he shared Monday on X. He added: “As of now, I’m safe and just need time to rest, decompress and process.”
“The longer we waited, it became clear that I was gambling with my freedom,” Taal tells Rolling Stone, explaining that ICE agents had previously visited his residence while he was out, according to a housemate who interacted with them. He made the “abrupt” decision to leave in the wee hours of Monday morning, taking only the “essentials” while leaving other possessions behind.
While Taal is not revealing his current location, he says he will eventually return to the U.K., where he has family and friends. The same day he announced his departure, Thomas Scripps, assistant national secretary of the U.K.’s Socialist Equality Party, said on X that he had delivered a letter to Foreign Secretary David Lammy about Taal’s case, “insisting the British government act to defend the rights of its citizen against the attacks of the Trump administration.”
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Taal is but one of many international student visa holders targeted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “Catch and Revoke” program, which has seen White House and ICE officials smear pro-Palestine activists as “pro-jihadist” supporters of Hamas, the militant group responsible for the deadly Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. As of last week, Rubio said, the U.S. had rescinded at least 300 student visas. “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” he explained.
Some foreign nationals have been snatched off the streets or from their homes by masked plainclothes ICE agents and detained without criminal charges as their deportations are processed. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student and Fulbright Scholar originally from Turkey who co-wrote an op-ed for a student newspaper urging the school to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” was picked up while walking alone in Somerville, Massachusetts, and shipped to an ICE facility in Louisiana against a judge’s order that she not be moved out of state. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian green-card holder born in Syria and recipient of a graduate degree from Columbia University, where he had negotiated with administrators during pro-Palestine protests on campus, was arrested in front of his eight-months pregnant wife, who recorded the raid on their New York apartment. He, too, was sent to Louisiana. Such cases have unleashed more protests.
As these arrests began, Taal and his legal team looked to force a legal showdown with the Trump administration over what civil rights groups have called an unconstitutional crackdown on free speech. On March 15, he and fellow Cornell Ph.D. candidate Sriram Parasurama and Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ, a literature professor, filed a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that two of Trump’s executive orders — titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” and “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” — flouted the First and Fifth Amendments.
“Both Orders violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike by impermissibly restricting speech based on viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment,” the complaint said. “They also raise serious due process concerns under the Fifth Amendment by threatening severe penalties — such as deportation or criminal prosecution — based on vague, subjective, and overbroad standards that grant unfettered discretion to government officials.” The “chilling effects” of the orders were already evident, the suit alleged, as they were clearly “intended to suppress dissenting viewpoints,” including criticism of U.S. foreign policy and support for the Palestinian cause.
On March 21, Taal’s attorneys received a court order that their client present himself at a Homeland Security Investigations office in Syracuse and surrender to ICE custody. The government claimed that Taal’s visa had been revoked March 14, the day before his suit was filed, but that they had been unable to serve him notice of this change in status. Taal doesn’t believe this claim is accurate, he tells Rolling Stone. “The government’s account of events is that it’s not retaliation or retribution, but rather, we were planning to revoke his visa a day before he filed the lawsuit,” he says. “But even with that, I was not made aware until a week later.” While he accepts that he might have been on a visa cancellation list before the suit, he still thinks ICE targeted him after the legal complaint. “I fundamentally reject their timeline,” he says. “And I think they’re absolute liars.”
Taal’s attorneys fought the surrender request, moving for a temporary restraining order, but were unsuccessful, with Judge Elizabeth Coombe of the Northern District of New York shooting down their motion on Thursday.
“We were due to submit a second briefing with the hope that I could stay out of detention whilst the lawsuit progressed,” Taal wrote in his statement on Monday. But, he continued, “Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favorable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs. I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted.” Taal expressed his gratitude for all who had stood with him, particularly his legal team, which withdrew his lawsuit on Monday. Eric Lee, an immigration attorney on Taal’s case, shared his statement on X, adding: “I feel like a stranger in my country. What is America if people like Momodou are not welcome here? It has been an honor to represent you.”
Taal included a warning in his letter: “For every person that has remained silent, just know that you are not safe either. The repression of Palestinian solidarity is now being used to wage a wholesale attack on any form of expression that challenges oppressive and exploitative relations in the U.S.”
Still, the activist was not without hope. “As sad as I feel right now, I do not despair,” Taal wrote. “I have never been more confident and sure that we will win and that Palestine will be free within our lifetime.”
Taal says he is “not opposed” to returning to the U.S. someday but currently has no desire to do so, and that Cornell has agreed to let him finish his dissertation and degree remotely. “I don’t hate the country,” he says. “I don’t hate the people. Yes, I have a very strong critique of U.S. foreign policy, imperialism, and how the U.S. acts against against communities who are oppressed. But it’s never a hatred for the place.”
Update April 4, 4:47 p.m.: This story has been updated with comment from Taal.