A graduate scholar who fled the US over fears she could be detained amid a crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters denies allegations by U.S. authorities that she has been concerned in actions selling Hamas.
“I am not a ‘terrorist sympathizer,'” mentioned Ranjani Srinivasan, referring to terminology the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety and its secretary have publicly labelled her with. “So, I simply discover it type of absurd.”
Srinivasan, who’s at the moment in Canada, spoke to CBC Information about her predicament. She fears for her security and CBC Information agreed to not reveal her location.
She particularly denies taking part in a high-profile protest at Columbia College, the place college students took over a constructing and police officers subsequently stormed it to finish the occupation final spring.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been taking steps to single out pro-Palestinian protesters it holds culpable for involvement in a slew of protests on U.S. faculty campuses.
In January, Trump pledged to deport some non-citizen faculty college students who participated in such protests.
“I used to be extraordinarily afraid of being detained,” mentioned Srinivasan, who pointed to the detention of some fellow Columbia University students as a cause for her issues about her security.
Sudden occasions
Till lately, Srinivasan had been a doctoral scholar in city planning at New York Metropolis’s Columbia College.
Between pursuing her research and grading college students’ papers, she “not often left the workplace,” Srinivasan says.
Then she discovered her scholar visa was being revoked, and that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers had been knocking on her door looking for to detain her.
She determined to go away the nation, through a Canada-bound flight from New York’s LaGuardia airport.
“It feels a bit surreal,” says Srinivasan, who continues to be attempting to make sense of the occasions which have unfolded.
Source link