By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh

Columbia University student, Ranjani Srinivasan, recently found that her student visa was revoked, and days later encountered the first knock on her apartment door from three federal immigration agents.

As reported by the NY Times, Ms. Srinivasan, an international student from India, packed a few of her things and headed to LaGuardia Airport, where she took a flight to Canada. The immigration agents returned to her apartment, this past Thursday night, for a third time in eight days—this time entering with a judicial warrant, but it was too late. She was gone. This was the same day that former Columbia student, living in campus housing, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested and detained for stirring pro-Palestinian riots on campus. “The atmosphere seemed so volatile and dangerous,” Ms. Srinivasan, said on Friday in an interview with The NY Times, her first public remarks since fleeing. “So I just made a quick decision.”

Ms. Srinivasan, 37, is a Fulbright recipient who was pursuing a doctoral degree in urban planning. She was one of the names targeted in President Trump’s recent crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators, in which federal immigration powers were utilized.

In recent days, a handful of other noncitizens were also targeted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency at Columbia University.

Ms. Srinivasan told the Times that she doesn’t know why the State Department suddenly revoked her student visa, without explanation, leaving Columbia to withdraw her enrollment because of her terminated legal status. The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement, on Friday, characterizing Ms. Srinivasan as a terrorist sympathizer and accused her of advocating violence and being “involved in activities supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization.” The department didn’t immediately provide evidence for the allegations.

“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live & study in the United States of America,” Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, wrote on X. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country.” Noem shared surveillance footage on social media showing Ms. Srinivasan with her suitcase at LaGuardia as she fled to Canada. Secretary Noem celebrated the departure, calling it “self-deportation.”

Ms. Srinivasan now has a team of lawyers, who are vehemently denying the allegations and who are accusing the Trump administration of revoking her visa for engaging in “protected political speech,” saying she was denied “any meaningful form of due process” to challenge the visa revocation. “Secretary Noem’s tweet is not only factually wrong but fundamentally un-American,” Naz Ahmad, one of Ms. Srinivasan’s lawyers, said in a statement, adding: “For at least a week, D.H.S. has made clear its intent to punish her for her speech, and they have failed in their efforts.”

“I’m fearful that even the most low-level political speech or just doing what we all do — like shout into the abyss that is social media — can turn into this dystopian nightmare where somebody is calling you a terrorist sympathizer and making you, literally, fear for your life and your safety,” Ms. Srinivasan said Friday in the interview.

Officials with DHS have added that when Ms. Srinivasan renewed her visa last year, she failed to disclose that she had two court summonses related to protests on Columbia’s campus. The summonses were from when she was arrested at an entrance to Columbia’s campus.