Ranjani Srinivasan, the Chennai-based doctoral candidate at Columbia University who left the United States after their student visa was suddenly revoked, is still bewildered that her peripheral involvement in pro-Palestine protests has led to her being disenrolled from the university.
“They’re making me out to be some sort of protest leader, which I’m not. I am just a PhD student who has too much work. Even if I wanted to go to a protest, I mostly don’t have time because I’m busy grading papers,” says Ranjani, who left the US fearing arrest. US officials have claimed that Ranjani had “supported Hamas”.
Rejecting the charge that protesting the violence means supporting Hamas, Ranjani calls it a “reductive discourse” and “false dichotomy” to clamp down on free speech. “Scholarship is nuanced. You can’t do scholarship in a true way if you’re constantly afraid of threats,” she says.
Ranjani had been pursuing her PhD in Urban Planning at Columbia University in New York on an F1 student visa. She seems to have narrowly evaded arrested by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who recently picked up Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian Columbia graduate. Ranjani appears to have escaped the arrest by a whisker, leaving without even grabbing a pair of clothes. She also had to leave behind ‘Cricket’, her pet cat, whom she had rescued four years ago.
On March 6 morning, Ranjani read an email from the US Consulate in Chennai – sent the previous night – saying her visa had been revoked, with no further clarifications.
“At first, I thought it was spam, because it felt so unreal. I remember texting a screenshot, inquiring with other international students if anybody else received a similar mail. When I realised it was real, I started frantically emailing the ISSO [International Students & Scholars Office] at Columbia asking why this had happened,” Ranjani says.
But Ranjani’s confusion and alarm only began to escalate after that. She says that her participation in any pro-Palestine protests had only been “superficial” and that her engagement with the protests had been largely limited to social media posts. While she had taken part in pro-Palestine protests in the past, she says she was not even in the US for most of April 2024 – when a large number of pro-Palestine student protests took place across campuses.
“I was doing fieldwork for my PhD back in India from August 2023 to April 22, 2024. From April 22 to April 27, I was in Boston with my family. I was in New York for a day, on April 27 for a conference, and then I went back to Boston.”
It must be noted that the student protests for Palestine have also included Jewish students who have refused to equate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel – a conflation that continues to be perpetuated by both the American Right and American Liberals.
“There is a tendency to depict any group of people as homogeneous, with the same political opinion,” Ranjani says, adding, “Even among Jewish students in Columbia, there are a variety of opinions about what is happening. There are people who are completely in favour of the protests…There are those who are wary of the protests, but find the crackdown in Columbia high-handed. And then, there are those who completely support Columbia’s approach. But Columbia has falsely depicted even Jewish students who have been supporting the protests as potential threats.”
She points to the expulsion of Grant Miner, a Jewish student in Columbia and a union leader on campus, who had asked university authorities to divest from companies that supported Israel.
Ranjani also observes: “Most of us believe in the self-determination and liberation of all people. I don’t think talking about human values or speaking out against war means that one is siding with Hamas. That’s a very reductive discourse and a false dichotomy to clamp down on free speech – which is what universities are supposed to be about.”
On March 11, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that Ranjani’s visa had been revoked for supporting “Hamas and terrorist activities”. Indian media houses were quick to repeat this narrative, even though the Trump administration has not provided any explanation for their serious allegations.
The announcement also said that Ranjani had “self-deported” using the newly launched US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home app. The app allows undocumented immigrants to submit an ‘intent to depart’ form and leave the US of their own volition. Ranjani tells TNM that she had never even heard of the app until the DHS announcement and added that she had simply just left the US for Canada on March 11.
The narrative around pro-Palestine protests
The revoking of Ranjani’s visa status came days after United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil from his Manhattan flat, in front of his eight months pregnant American wife, despite the fact that he holds a US green card. Khalil, a Palestinian, had been an active leader in pro-Palestine protests on campus.
The action against both Ranjani and Kahlil appears to stem from US President Donald Trump’s newly formed multiagency Anti-Semitism Task Force. The task force was established after Trump’s January 29 Executive Order to “stop anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on university and college campuses.” It has representatives from the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Education (ED), and the General Services Administration (GSA).
ICE comes knocking
Ranjani describes her ordeal from the time she was officially notified that her visa had been revoked. On March 5, the US Consulate in Chennai emailed Ranjani, at 11.45 pm local time. On March 6 morning, Ranjani saw the email and eventually reached out to ISSO on campus.
“I was scared of being out of compliance with the visa regulations. If I had to leave the country, I had to make arrangements immediately but there was no reply.”
Ranjani says she then emailed the Dean of Academic and Student Affairs around 4.30 pm the same evening, explaining the situation. The dean ensured that ISSO’s Director of Compliance Maria Reynoso replied to Ranjani via email. Reynoso, according to Ranjani, suggested an online meeting with an ISSO advisor.
Initially, only a March 11 appointment was available, Ranjani says. After she demanded an earlier meeting, pointing out her situation, she was granted an appointment for March 7.
During the March 7 online meeting, Ranjani says she was informed that her Form I-20, or the ‘Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant Student Status’, was still intact. This meant that her presence in the country was still legal.
But before this information could offer respite, there was a knock at the front door of Ranjani’s flat on campus. “My roommate recognised the knock as someone from a law enforcement agency and knew how to respond. Without opening the door, she asked them to identify themselves.”
However, Ranjani adds that the people at the door did not identify themselves as ICE but claimed to be police, without providing credentials. They also allegedly shouted through the door that Ranjani’s visa had been revoked and that they just wanted to talk.
“For context, ICE can trick people in order to enter a residence. Once you open the door, it means that you’re consenting to be searched and detained. That’s what happened to Khalil. His door was open and ICE agents walked in. ICE would require a judicial warrant to open the door, though,” Ranjani tells TNM.
Because Ranjani didn’t open the door and there was no warrant to search the flat, the agents at the door had to leave. But the exchange between their roommate and the agents had occurred while Ranjani was still on call with the ISSO adviser.
“If I had been alone, I would have opened the door. I would have been taken to a detention facility and potentially been in deportation proceedings right now. I was on call with the adviser who was saying that everything is fine, but ICE was at my door. I told her that and she said ‘oh’.”
Ranjani continues: “Then the adviser muted herself and started calling people frantically, but somehow at the end of those calls she seemed kind of amused. As I watched the interaction, she put down the phone, turned to me, and offered me a list of lawyers. She also told me to call Public Safety – the campus security guards.”
Ranjani says Public Safety advised her to refrain from opening the door to ICE officials, and said that they would “file a report”.
“ICE cannot enter a private building without a judicial warrant, but they were on campus,” Ranjani says, adding, “At this point, I realised that nobody was really helping me. So I decided to leave the flat quietly, though I was still confused. I’d been told my Form I-20 was still intact, which meant my stay in the US was still legal.”
On March 8 and March 9, ICE made more attempts to enter the flat, Ranjani alleges, even after she’d left. Further on March 9, ISSO informed Ranjani that her student status had been revoked. Columbia also revoked her enrollment, notifying Ranjani to vacate university housing.
Fearful of detainment, Ranjani says she left for Canada on March 11. Once out of the US, Ranjani’s lawyers notified ICE on March 14 that she’d left the country. ICE responded, demanding proof. Her lawyers were still purportedly compiling proof of departure when DHS Secretary Noem posted the now-viral CCTV clip of Ranjani at the airport, and a caption referring to the former doctoral candidate as a “Hamas sympathiser”.
In the meantime, on March 13, DHS officials allegedly went to Ranjani’s flat with a warrant. Ranjani says the officials had seemed surprised to find the bedroom unoccupied and cleaned out. Ranjani also says that Columbia had sent out an official email informing students that the university was cooperating with the officials concerned.
Crackdowns in US universities
Columbia has been at the heart of administrative backlash against protesting students in the US. In April 2024, former Columbia University president Minouche Shafik resigned from her post after being summoned for hearings in front of the US Congress amid accusations of “anti-Semitism” on the campus.
Shafik was the first woman to hold the prestigious post of president of Columbia. But she will more likely be remembered for not once, but twice, calling in the New York Police Department on students protesting for Palestine. In April 2024, students occupied portions of the University grounds, pitching tents to set up the Gaza Solidarity Encampment even while Shafik testified against them before Congress.
At the time, protesters had told the campus newspaper that students “have taken back our campus in the spirit of the 1968 occupation of Hamilton Hall, establishing the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on East Butler Lawn.”
The student had been referring to the occupation of Hamilton Hall – a significant building on campus that also houses the Dean’s office – in 1968, protesting against the Vietnam War. Back then, police eventually entered the building through underground tunnels, arresting more than a thousand students. In the 1980s, student demonstrators against the racial apartheid in South Africa had nicknamed the building ‘Mandela Hall’.
In keeping with that tradition, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment had referred to the Hamilton Building as ‘Hind’s Hall’ in homage to the six-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, reportedly killed in a close-range tank shelling by the Israeli military along with her family, while in their car. The new nickname even inspired American rapper Macklemore to release ‘Hind’s Hall’ – a pro-Palestine protest song.
In April last year, at least 100 Columbia students were arrested after Shafik called in the NYPD. Ranjani had been among those arrested on April 30, even though she says she hadn’t participated in occupying Hamilton Hall. Recalling the arrest, she points out that two cases against her – one for allegedly obstructing traffic and the other for refusing to disperse – were dismissed.
Ranjani says that she had been returning from a department picnic at the nearby Riverside Park, and were surprised to see police and barricades everywhere on reaching campus. “From around 6 pm to 7.30 pm, we were just circling the campus, trying to get back to our flats. But we kept getting directed by the police from one area to another. It was chaos,” Ranjani recalls.
Eventually, Ranjani and her friends found themselves in the most tense area of campus, which was packed with students, police, and other campus residents. This was when the arrests took place.
“At the police station we were taken to, there were elderly faculty members who had simply stepped out of the house to figure out what was going on. Many of the protesters were Jewish,” Ranjani says, adding, “The two charges against me were thrown out. There was not even a trial. After that, I didn’t face disciplinary proceedings either. A lot of protesters did face disciplinary proceedings in Columbia.”
During these arrests, Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar’s daughter Isra Hirsi was among the students suspended for participating in the protests. Hirsi wasn’t the only one to face backlash at the time. Neither have such measures been restricted to Columbia University.
ABC News reported in April last year that Columbia students who were a part of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment were either expelled, suspended, or had their degrees revoked. Across US university campuses, reports emerged of arrests and expulsions of peaceful protesters.
Speaking about this atmosphere of fear, Ranjani says she’d hoped that she could speak directly to university officials and lay the matter to rest. “I have a perfect GPA [Grade Point Average]. I have no disciplinary record. I've not been through any disciplinary proceedings. But the university administration is afraid to even contact me or anyone else in a similar situation. It appears that Columbia is being investigated for harbouring ‘illegal aliens’.”
In 2024, Harvard University temporarily banned student and faculty access to libraries after protesters silently read or studied while holding placards in solidarity with Palestine, according to The New York Times. Solidarity measures by the pro-Palestinian organisation Jewish Voices for Peace were shut down in nine universities including at the University of California, NYT further reported.
Earlier this month, several news reports alleged that the US State Department would be using Artificial Intelligence to identify students who are “Hamas sympathisers” by scanning their social media posts.
Reports also say that pro-Israel Jewish groups have been actively tracking students demonstrating for Palestine. According to these reports, a right-wing organisation named Betar Worldwide has taken credit for the ICE arrest of Khalil. The organisation claims to have compiled a ‘deportation list’ of international students and naturalised citizens who have advocated for Palestine.
It may be recalled that the 2024 crackdowns occurred during the Joe Biden presidency. Meanwhile, in March this year, the Trump administration cancelled approximately USD 400 million in federal grants to Columbia as punishment. “Freezing the funds is one of the tools we are using to respond to this spike in anti-Semitism. This is only the beginning,” Leo Terrell, head of the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, had said at the time.
From DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Trump administration’s narrative has been similar: branding those involved in student demonstrations as “Hamas sympathisers” and portraying their protests as “terrorism”. It must be noted that in both cases, no evidence has been presented yet for such allegations. But like the equation of any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, the branding of pro-Palestine protesters as “Hamas supporters” appears to be another means to silence dissent.
Sharing a news report of Khalil’s arrest on X, Rubio said on March 10, “ We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”
What now?
Regarding her current predicament, Ranjani says, “The fact that this has escalated so much for even someone like me – when all I've done is share a few social media posts and sign some letters on academic repression – is chilling. It really is dystopian at some level. I don’t have that kind of reach.”
But still holding out hope, she adds: “I would request the State Department to please reinstate my visa and allow me to enroll back in Columbia. I also appeal to the Indian government to support me and to protect other Indian students. I’m six months away from finishing my PhD. As you can see, the entire process was so arbitrary. The dangers of risking staying there and appealing were so high that I could not go through the judicial process over there. I just hope that both the Indian government and the Tamil Nadu state government can work together and help me resolve this.”
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