Several foreign nationals and tourists have been arrested or deported in recent weeks, as the Trump administration ramps up its immigration enforcement.
Some of the cases appear to be over legitimate issues, while others seem highly politicized. One of the most controversial is that of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine activist who helped orchestrate the protests at Columbia University. Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident, was detained earlier this month by federal immigration authorities who were reportedly acting on a State Department order to revoke his green card, per the Guardian.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” President Trump wrote on his social media site, adding that Khalil’s arrest would be the first of “many to come.”
Several tourists have also been caught in the crosshairs, prompting Canada, the U.K., Germany, and other European countries to issue advisories about traveling to the U.S.
As the crackdown continues, we’ll be keeping an eye on the most prominent cases.
Kseniia Petrova
A Russian researcher at Harvard was detained at a Louisiana immigration facility over failing to declare frog embryos she and others at the university were studying. Kseniia Petrova was stopped by Customs and Border Protection after they found the “noninfectious and non-toxic” specimens in her luggage, her attorneys wrote in a complaint.
Petrova was transporting the embryos at the request of the lead researcher, ABC reports.
“Rather than imposing the appropriate monetary penalties for the customs violation, CBP improperly invoked their extensive immigration authority to impose a punishment grossly disproportionate to the situation,” Petrova’s attorney, Gregory Romanovsky, told ABC.
Romanovsky added that Petrova’s situation is “especially dire” because she may now be deported to Russia, “where she faces the threat of immediate arrest due to her prior political activism and outspoken opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement to ABC that Petrova was lawfully detained for “lying to federal officers about carrying biological substances into the country.”
Rümeysa Öztürk
Plainclothes officers in Boston abruptly detained a Turkish Tufts University student earlier this month. Six agents with their faces covered approached Rümeysa Öztürk as she was leaving her home in Somerville, Massachusetts. They seized the 30-year-old Fulbright scholar’s phone and handcuffed her, a video of the incident shows.
“It looked like a kidnapping,” a witness, who recorded the arrest, told the Associated Press. “They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered.”
The Department of Homeland Security has said that Öztürk’s visa was terminated because of her support of Hamas, but did not provide any evidence, the Guardian reports. Her attorneys say she’s being retaliated against for an op-ed she co-authored for her student newspaper last year, pushing for Tufts to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
A federal judge last week ruled that Öztürk can’t be deported without a court order.
“Criticizing U.S. foreign policy and human rights violations is neither illegal nor grounds for detention,” an attorney for the student said. “The government must immediately release Rümeysa to continue her studies and rejoin her community.”
Badar Khan Suri
Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, was detained last week and had his J-1 visa revoked. The Indian national has been accused by the DHS of “actively spreading Hamas propaganda.”
Suri’s lawyers have denied this, and have argued that he is being punished for his wife’s ties to Gaza. Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent whose father, Ahmed Yousef, is a former advisor to Hamas, the Associated Press reports. Yousef, who left his role with the organization over a decade ago, told the Times that his son-in-law wasn’t involved in “political activism.”
The State Department has detained Suri under the same rarely used federal provision it invoked to detain Khalil. The provision allows the Secretary of State to remove any alien they “believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
A federal judge last week ruled that Suri can’t be removed from the U.S. “until the Court issues a contrary order,” NPR reports.
Rasha Alawieh
Earlier this month, Rasha Alawieh, MD, a kidney transplant specialist at Brown University’s medical school, was deported despite a court order temporarily blocking her deportation.
The 34-year-old, who has a valid visa, was detained last week after returning from her native Lebanon. The DHS said Dr. Alawieh was deported because she had attended a funeral in February for Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and “openly admitted” to supporting him.
“A visa is a privilege not a right,” a spokeswoman for the agency told the New York Times. “Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied. This is common-sense security.”
Dr. Alawieh’s attorney, Stephanie Marzouk, told reports last week that “we’re not going to stop fighting to get her back in the U.S. to see her patients, and we’re also going to make sure that the government follows the rule of law.”
Immigration experts say the kidney transplant specialist may face an uphill battle. “Essentially, immigration officers really don’t have a bar to prove anything,” immigration attorney, Veronica Cardenas, told CNN.
Lucas Sielaff, Jessica Brösche, and Fabian Schmidt
In recent weeks, at least three German nationals have been detained. Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old tourist, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Mexican border. She spent six weeks at a prison in San Diego and was in solitary confinement for eight days, the tattoo artist told a local news outlet.
Lucas Sielaff returned to Germany this month after spending two weeks in the same San Diego facility. He was also arrested while trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico. The 25-year-old’s girlfriend said she believes he was arrested because he’s not fluent in English and incorrectly answered a question about his residency, the Guardian reports.
Fabian Schmidt, a green card holder who’s lived legally in the U.S. since his teens, was detained on March 7 after returning from a trip to Luxembourg, according to the Boston Globe. Schmidt’s family said the 34-year-old was stripped and placed in a cold shower and has faced other unnecessary treatment that caused him to fall ill and require medical attention.
The electrical engineer is still being held in Rhode Island, although it’s unclear what for; Customs and Border Patrol haven’t filed charges and DHS hasn’t given him a notice to appear on charges, per the Globe.
A 10-year-old U.S. citizen with brain cancer
NBC News reports that a 10-year-old U.S. citizen was removed from the country along with her parents, who are both undocumented.
In February, the family crossed the border to Houston, where the girl’s specialists are based. They went through a checkpoint they’ve passed through several times to get to the hospital, showing officers letters from their doctors and lawyers, but this time the parents were arrested. They, along with their five children, were then transported back to Mexico. NBC has published the family’s name, as they were deported to a region known for kidnapping American citizens.
Since the family was deported, the 10-year-old has not had the care she needs. The girl still has swelling on her brain that’s affected her speech and motor skills, her mother told NBC. The family also has two other children with cardiac conditions that require specialized medical attention.
Currently, the Texas Civil Rights Project is asking for humanitarian parole for the family, so the girl can continue treatment.
Ranjani Srinivasan
Ranjani Srinivasan, a Fulbright scholar who was pursuing a doctoral degree in urban planning at Columbia, recently fled to Canada out of fear that she’d be detained.
“The atmosphere seemed so volatile and dangerous,” the 37-year-old from India told the Times. “So I just made a quick decision.”
Earlier this month, as the drama over Khalil’s detention unfolded, the State Department abruptly revoked Srinivasan’s student visa. The Department of Homeland Security later issued a statement describing the student as a terrorist sympathizer and accused her of “supporting Hamas.”
“I’m not a ‘terrorist sympathizer,’” she told CBC News. “So, I just find it kind of absurd.”
Srinivasan has also said that she did not participate in a high-profile protest at Columbia, where students took over a campus building. President Trump has pledged to deport some non-citizen students who were involved in the demonstrations.
Jasmine Mooney
A 35-year-old Canadian woman was detained while attempting to obtain a new U.S. work permit at the Mexican border.
Jasmine Mooney was taken an ICE prison in San Diego and then transferred to one in Arizona. The entrepreneur described the conditions as “inhumane” and likened the experience to a “sick psychological experiment,” she told People.
In an essay for the Guardian, Mooney says that she’s still unclear about why she was detained.
