After Indian scholar, another Ivy league student targeted by Trump ‘self-deports’ from US
The Trump administration has been revoking the visas of international students involved in protests against Israel on university campuses.
Momodou Taal, a British-Gambian student at Cornell University in New York left the US after being asked by immigration officials to turn himself in. (X via The Cornell Daily Sun)
Nearly a month after Indian-student Ranjani Srinivasan “self-deported” herself after US Consulate in Chennai revoked her visa on March 5, another student, who had his US visa revoked due to his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests, has chosen to leave the country rather than face deportation.
Momodou Taal, a dual citizen of the UK and The Gambia, who is a graduate student at the prestigious Cornell University had his student visa revoked last year amid campus protests against Israel during the Israel-Gaza war. After suing to block his deportation, he announced on X that he had decided to leave the US “free and with my head held high” after a judge denied his request to delay removal.
The Trump administration has been revoking the visas of international students involved in protests against Israel on university campuses. Taal is at least the second international student to leave the US voluntarily after being targeted for removal by the Department of Homeland Security, which refers to such cases as “self-deportations.”
Earlier Indian scholar Ranjani Srinivasan, also left the US after being targeted for removal. “I’m not a terrorist sympathizer,” she told CNN. “I’m literally just a random student.”
Adding that, she hopes to return to Columbia University to complete her PhD program.
“Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Taal wrote on X, BBC reported.
Update:
Eid Mubarak
Long live the student intifada! pic.twitter.com/LDwKS9SG6C
— Momodou ✊🏿 (@MomodouTaal) March 31, 2025
Taal was suspended twice by Cornell University for protest activities. On the day of the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023, he posted: “Glory to the Resistance,” and later told protesters, “We are in solidarity with the armed resistance in Palestine from the river to the sea,” according to The Cornell Daily Sun.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that at least 300 university students had their visas revoked for participating in pro-Palestinian protests. The Trump administration argues that the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the deportation of non-citizens deemed “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the US.
The removals are part of an executive order signed in January to combat what the administration classifies as antisemitism. Critics, however, have condemned the deportations as a violation of free speech.
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