T is an international student from Columbia University.
Keren Carrión/NPR
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Keren Carrión/NPR
When, in early March, one of Mahmoud Khalil’s classmates at Columbia University heard that immigration agents had come for him, she triple-locked her door, terrified she might be next.
“I just absolutely broke down, because he has a green card,” she said. As a student with only a temporary visa, she reasoned they’d certainly come for her. “That’s what really made me feel afraid.”
In an instant the student, who because of that fear asked to be identified by her first initial, T, faced a decision more consequential than any she had yet to confront during a tumultuous year of involvement in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian movement. President Trump was trying to make good on his promise to deport foreign-born student protesters just like her. Should she continue to speak out, she asked herself, for what had become the central cause motivating her life? Or should she go silent in the hopes of evading arrest and potential expulsion from the U.S.?
It’s a high-stakes reckoning that international students across the country have had to grapple with as the Trump administration has moved aggressively to silence campus criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. It’s canceled student visas and whisked outspoken foreign-born students away to ICE detention centers, accusing them, without presenting evidence, of supporting Hamas terrorism, spreading antisemitism and threatening the nation’s foreign policy.
“Mahmoud’s detainment was the catalyzing moment where people either continued advocating or just completely retreated,” T said one recent afternoon, sitting in a New York City park not far from Columbia’s campus. “At this point, I don’t think anything would get me to stop advocating for Palestine. But I see it in all the international students around me. People are terrified.”
Two international graduate students in the final weeks of their academic programs recently spoke with NPR about their decision to continue speaking out despite the risk of losing their visas and being detained or deported, and about how that decision has affected their lives and plans for the future.
