NEW YORK, NY – Israel’s war in Gaza is personal for Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.
Khalil, a 29-year-old Palestinian refugee who grew up in Syria, wanted to join the anti-war protests on campus but was nervous.
Khalil faced a dilemma common to international students. He was in the United States on his F-1 student visa. His ability to stay in the country depended on whether he continued to enroll as a full-time student.
But participating in protests — including the encampment that appeared on Columbia’s lawn last month — meant risking suspension and other penalties that could jeopardize registration status.
“From the beginning, I decided to stay out of the public eye, away from media attention and high-risk activities,” Khalil said. “I considered this encampment to be ‘high risk.’
Instead, he chose to become the lead negotiator for the Columbia University Apartheid Divest. The student group is calling on school administrators to sever ties with groups involved in abuses against Israelis and Palestinians.
“I’m one of the lucky people to be able to advocate for the rights of Palestinians, people who are being killed in Palestine,” Khalil said, adding that his advocacy is “literally the least I can do.” He said that.
Khalil explained that he worked closely with the university to ensure that his activities did not get into trouble. Based on his conversations with school leaders, he felt it was unlikely he would face punishment.
Still, on April 30, Khalil received an email from Colombian authorities informing him that he had been suspended for his alleged participation in the encampment.
Mr Khalil said he was “shocked”. “Suspending the negotiator was a foolish thing to do.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a student negotiator at Columbia University, says he chose his role in the protests to avoid punishment that would jeopardize his immigration status. (Ted Shafley/AP Photo)
legal risk
But the next day, before Mr. Khalil could appeal the decision, the university sent him an email saying his suspension had been lifted.
“After reviewing the record and reviewing the evidence with Columbia University Public Safety, we have decided to revoke your interim suspension,” the short, three-sentence email said.
Khalil said he even received a call from the Columbia University president’s office apologizing for the mistake.
But legal experts and civil rights advocates warn that even a temporary suspension can have serious consequences for students who rely on education visas to stay in the country. .
Naz Ahmad, co-founder of the State University of New York School of Law’s Creating Law Enforcement Responsibility and Accountability project, said that if a student visa holder is no longer enrolled full-time, the university will He told Al Jazeera that he was obligated to report to the Department of Homeland Security within 21 days.
That department oversees the U.S. government’s immigration services. Students must then make a plan to leave or risk eventual deportation proceedings.
“If they don’t leave soon, they will start staying illegally,” Ahmad said. “And that could affect your ability to reapply for other benefits in the future.”
Students watch as police enter the Columbia University garrison in April (Isa Farfan/Al Jazeera) Ann Block, a senior staff attorney at the Immigration Legal Resource Center, told Al Jazeera that most schools have no international students. He said there are designated officials monitoring the situation.
“They’re usually international student advisors, they help people get into the school, they get visas to come to the school from overseas in the first place, and they usually help with advising,” Block explained. .
Even outside of an academic context, non-citizens face the potential for serious consequences if they choose to protest.
Noncitizens enjoy many of the same civil rights as U.S. citizens, including the right to free speech, but experts say laws like the Patriot Act can limit how these protections are applied. He said there is.
The Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, contains broad language that can be used to interpret protests as “terrorist” activity, said Elizabeth Ouyang, a civil rights lawyer and professor at New York University. is said to be included.
And the law gives the government the power to restrict the entry of those engaged in such activities, she added.
“Section 411 of the Patriot Act prohibits the entry of noncitizens who use their “position of greater prominence than anyone else in the country to advocate or support terrorist activities,” Ouyang said.
“And what is terrorist activity? And that’s where the U.S. Secretary of State has broad discretion to interpret that.”
Columbia University students threatened with suspension for participating in a campus encampment planned to show solidarity with the people of Gaza (Isa Farfan/Al Jazeera)
avoid the front lines
Intense scrutiny of campus protests has fueled concerns that such an outcome could result.
After all, criticism of Israel is a sensitive topic for the United States, Israel’s longtime ally.
A study released in May showed that 97 percent of U.S. campus protests were peaceful, but politicians on both sides continue to raise concerns about violence and anti-Semitic hatred. There is.
Just last week, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles introduced a bill called the Study Abroad Act that would revoke student visas “for rioting, unlawful protest, or other purposes.”
He cited the recent wave of university protests as motivation for supporting the bill, and likened the demonstrators to terrorists.
“Many of America’s elite universities are tarnishing their hard-earned reputations by opening their doors to susceptible terrorist sympathizers,” Ogles told the right-wing site The Daily Caller.
Some international students who spoke to Al Jazeera said the tense political atmosphere had forced them to avoid protests altogether.
A student camp at Columbia University in April sparked similar protests on campuses around the world (Isa Farfan/Al Jazeera) “As international students, we simply cannot even risk being caught on site.” ” said a student journalist at the university. She lives in Los Angeles, California (UCLA) and requested anonymity in order to speak freely.
Another student added that he doesn’t even feel comfortable broadcasting protests live on UCLA Radio, the student-run station where he works.
Other students explained that they had pursued peripheral roles in the protests, such as providing goods and services instead of manning camps or clashing with police.
An undocumented Columbia University student from Mexico said he joined a supply “platoon” that helped distribute supplies and move tents. She asked that her identity be revealed only by her first initial, her A.
“None of that means there’s any risk,” she said. “I feel like I was able to find a way out. But I’m not necessarily going to stand in front of the cops.”
On April 29, student organizers at Columbia University used a megaphone to warn classmates if they were attending the school on a visa to leave the camp for fear of suspension. Ms. A, an undocumented student, said that her parents also advised her not to participate in the protests.
“It’s very hard to be a bystander when something goes against your beliefs,” she explained. “I can’t watch my children die.”
Students at a Columbia University campsite in April encouraged their international classmates to leave the school before being suspended (Isa Farfan/Al Jazeera)
cooling effect
One Columbia University student from South Africa, who requested anonymity due to concerns about her immigration status, said it was actually the tradition of American campus activities that drew her to the school.
“I came here because I knew there were protests against apartheid South Africa. In 1968, there were protests over Vietnam and Harlem,” she said.
However, she explained that she had to scale back her activities after receiving a disciplinary warning for her activism this year.
“The combination of xenophobia and extreme surveillance makes the decision to join this movement different in the way I would make it if I were a citizen,” she said.
Several international students told Al Jazeera that police crackdowns on protests on campus have also had a chilling effect.
The number of campus protesters arrested last month is estimated to be over 2,000. Just this Thursday, 47 people at the University of California, Irvine were taken into custody, according to campus officials.
Oriya, a Columbia University undergraduate from Thailand, was one of those who attended her school’s camp in its early days. She provided only her first name to Al Jazeera, also citing her concerns about immigration.
But when school administrators set a deadline for protesters to disperse or be suspended, Olya decided she had reached her limit.
“After that, I stopped going to the encampment frequently because I realized that the managers really didn’t know what they were going to do,” Olya said.
“I think the fear of possibly being arrested has overshadowed my interest in advocacy and activism in general, especially in this country.”
