Immigration Officials Arrest Second Person Who Participated in Pro-Palestinian Protests at Columbia

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather near a main gate at Columbia University in New York, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, just before New York City police officers cleared the area after a building was taken over by protesters earlier in the day. (AP)
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather near a main gate at Columbia University in New York, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, just before New York City police officers cleared the area after a building was taken over by protesters earlier in the day. (AP)
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Immigration Officials Arrest Second Person Who Participated in Pro-Palestinian Protests at Columbia

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather near a main gate at Columbia University in New York, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, just before New York City police officers cleared the area after a building was taken over by protesters earlier in the day. (AP)
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather near a main gate at Columbia University in New York, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, just before New York City police officers cleared the area after a building was taken over by protesters earlier in the day. (AP)

Immigration officials have arrested a second person who participated in Pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, and have revoked the visa of another student, they announced Friday.

Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was arrested by immigration officers for overstaying her student visa, the Department of Homeland Security said. Kordia’s visa was terminated in January 2022 for "lack of attendance," the department said. Kordia was previously arrested for her involvement in protests at Columbia in April 2024, it added.

The Trump administration also revoked the visa of Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen and doctoral student, on March 5 "for advocating for violence and terrorism." On Tuesday, Srinivasan opted to "self-deport," the department said.

The announcement comes after the recent arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who helped lead student protests at the school and is facing deportation.

Khalil was rushed from New York to Louisiana last weekend in a manner that left the outspoken Columbia University graduate student feeling like he was being kidnapped, his lawyers wrote in an updated lawsuit seeking his immediate release.

The lawyers described in detail what happened to the Palestinian activist as he was flown to Louisiana by agents he said never identified themselves. Once there, he was left to sleep in a bunker with no pillow or blanket as top US officials cheered the effort to deport a man his lawyers say sometimes became the "public face" of student protests on Columbia’s campus against Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

The filing late Thursday in Manhattan federal court was the result of a federal judge’s Wednesday order that they finally be allowed to speak with Khalil.

The lawyers said his treatment by federal authorities from Saturday, when he was first arrested, to Monday reminded Khalil of when he left Syria shortly after the forced disappearance of his friends there during a period of arbitrary detention in 2013.

"Throughout this process, Mr. Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped," the lawyers wrote of his treatment.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump heralded Khalil’s arrest as the first "of many to come," vowing on social media to deport students he said engage in "pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity."

In court papers, lawyers for the Justice Department said Kahlil was detained under a law allowing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to remove someone from the country if he has reasonable grounds to believe their presence or activities would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.

Trump and Rubio were added as defendants in the civil lawsuit seeking to free Khalil.

The government attorneys asked a judge to toss out the lawsuit or transfer it to New Jersey or Louisiana, saying jurisdiction belongs in the locations where Khalil has been held since his detention.

According to the lawsuit, Khalil repeatedly asked to speak to a lawyer after the US permanent resident with no criminal history was snatched by federal agents as he and his wife were returning to Columbia's residential housing, where they lived, after dinner at a friend's home.

Confronted by agents for the Department of Homeland Security, Khalil briefly telephoned his lawyer before he was taken to FBI headquarters in lower Manhattan, the lawsuit said.

It was there that Khalil saw an agent approach another agent and say, "the White House is requesting an update," the lawyers wrote.

At some point early Sunday, Khalil was taken, handcuffed and shackled, to the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a privately-run facility where he spent the night in a cold waiting room for processing, his request for a blanket denied, the lawsuit said.

When he reached the front of the line for processing, he was told his processing would not occur after all because he was being transported by immigration authorities, it said.

Put in a van, Khalil noticed that one of the agents received a text message instructing that Khalil was not to use his phone, the lawsuit said.

At 2:45 p.m. Sunday, he was put on an American Airlines flight from Kennedy International Airport to Dallas, where he was put on a second flight to Alexandria, Louisiana. He arrived at 1 a.m. Monday and a police car took him to the Louisiana Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, it said.

At the facility, he now worries about his pregnant wife and is "also very concerned about missing the birth of his first child," the lawsuit said.

In April, Khalil was to begin a job and receive health benefits that the couple was counting on to cover costs related to the birth and care of the child, it added.

"It is very important to Mr. Khalil to be able to continue his protected political speech, advocating and protesting for the rights of Palestinians — both domestically and abroad," the lawsuit said, noting that Khalil was planning to speak on a panel at the upcoming premiere in Copenhagen, Denmark, of a documentary in which he is featured.

At a hearing Wednesday, Khalil's attorneys said they had not been allowed any attorney-client-protected communications with Khalil since his arrest and had been told they could speak to him in 10 days. Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered that at least one conversation be permitted on Wednesday and Thursday.



Trump Freezes US-funded Media Outlets Including Voice of America

FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
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Trump Freezes US-funded Media Outlets Including Voice of America

FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - The Voice of America building, Monday, June 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

President Donald Trump's administration on Saturday put journalists at Voice of America and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, abruptly freezing decades-old outlets long seen as critical to countering Russian and Chinese information offensives.
Hundreds of staffers at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes and office-issued equipment, AFP reported.
Trump, who has already eviscerated the US global aid agency and the Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among "elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary."
Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, said in an email to the outlets that federal grant money "no longer effectuates agency priorities."
The White House said the cuts would ensure "taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda," marking a dramatic tone shift towards the networks established to extend US influence overseas.
White House press official Harrison Fields wrote "goodbye" on X in 20 languages, a jab at the outlets' multilingual coverage.
VOA director Michael Abramowitz said he was among 1,300 staffers placed on leave Saturday.
"VOA needs thoughtful reform, and we have made progress in that regard. But today's action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission," he said on Facebook, noting that its coverage -- in 48 languages -- reaches 360 million people each week.
The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancellation of funding "a massive gift to America's enemies."
"The Iranian ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years," its president, Stephen Capus, said in a statement.
Uncensored reporting
US-funded media have reoriented themselves since the end of the Cold War, dropping much of the programming geared toward newly democratic Central and Eastern European countries and focusing on Russia and China.
Chinese state-funded media have expanded their reach sharply over the past decade, including by offering free services to outlets in the developing world that would otherwise pay for Western news agencies.
Radio Free Asia, established in 1996, sees its mission as providing uncensored reporting into countries without free media including China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam.
The outlets have an editorial firewall, with a stated guarantee of independence despite government funding.
The policy has angered some around Trump, who has long railed against media and suggested that government-funded outlets should promote his policies.
The move to end US-funded media is likely to meet challenges, much like Trump's other sweeping cuts. Congress, not the president, has the constitutional power of the purse and Radio Free Asia in particular has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past.
'Chaos'
Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders condemned the decision, saying it "threatens press freedom worldwide and negates 80 years of American history in supporting the free flow of information."
Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and senior Democratic congresswoman Lois Frankel said in a joint statement that Trump's move would "cause lasting damage to US efforts to counter propaganda around the world."
One VOA employee, who requested anonymity, described Saturday's message as another "perfect example of the chaos and unprepared nature of the process," with VOA staffers presuming that scheduled programming is off but not told so directly.

A Radio Free Asia employee said: "It's not just about losing your income. We have staff and contractors who fear for their safety. We have reporters who work under the radar in authoritarian countries in Asia. We have staff in the US who fear deportation if their work visa is no longer valid."
"Wiping us out with the strike of a pen is just terrible."