A Cornell University student, facing the possibility of deportation after participating in the Palestinian PhD protests in Gambia, England, said he left the United States on Monday.
Student Momodou Taal, who has been suspended several times by the university, including what he said was an unruly protest, is one of at least nine international students the Trump administration has tried to remove from the country for what is called anti-Semitism.
Unlike some of the other students, Tar was not detained and had filed a lawsuit against him attempting to block legal proceedings.
In a statement on social media platform X, Tar indicated that he has left the country. “I made the decision to leave the United States, I was freed and I held my head high,” Tar wrote. He said federal immigration and customs enforcement officers came to his home and revoked his visa. There were no immediate replies to requests for comment from the agency.
“Given what we saw in the United States, I have lost my faith that a favorable ruling from the court guarantees my personal safety and the ability to express my beliefs,” he said in a statement. He warned that others were at risk as well, renewing his support for the Palestinians.
Tar, one of the leaders of tent protests on the lawns on the campus in Cornell, Ithaca, New York, and students urged the university to sell the holdings of companies that they said supported Israeli military campaign against Hamas extremists in Gaza. On October 7, 2023, the day Hamas attacked Israel and caused war, he wrote online, “Glory of Resistance.”
After taking office in January, President Trump signed an executive order that the United States would “remove” aliens engaged in “illegal anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”
Last month, ICE officials detained Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University. They are also looking for others, including Yoon Zeo Chung, a legal permanent resident who moved from Korea to the US when she was seven years old.
Trump administration officials have in some cases argued that “visas are privileges, not rights.” Civil rights advocates have called deportation efforts one of the biggest attacks on freedom of speech in the United States for decades.
Tar, who holds joint British and Gambia citizenship, was in the US on a student visa. He was working towards a Ph.D. In Africana Studies.
