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In this screenshot from a video posted by @Sec_Noem via X on March 14, 2025, Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen who participated in pro-Palestinian protests at United State’s Columbia University, leaves the country after her visa was revoked by the Department of State.
| Photo Credit: X/@Sec_Noem
An Indian PhD candidate at the prestigious Columbia University in the U.S., who was accused of being a “pro-Hamas sympathiser”, narrated that the U.S. immigration and customs enforcement agents raided her apartment on the campus housing and she had to seek help from immigration attorneys and has temporarily taken refuge in Canada.
Also Read | Who is Ranjani Srinivasan
Speaking to The Hindu in an online interview, Ranjani Srinivasan, who is in her fifth year of PhD, said she is “super afraid of retaliation” and that she is not yet aware of what specific charges were brought against her by the American authorities that led to her being “disenrolled” from the university just six months before she was to complete her PhD thesis.
“My flatmates and my friends started helping me and I felt that the Columbia housing was unsafe. So, I moved to another address to stay with some people who could support me. Then on Friday was the first disappearance from the Columbia campus — Mahmoud Khalil is detained and disappeared — when I became extremely scared,” said Ms. Srinivasan speaking from an undisclosed location in Canada saying that it took her several days to understand the extent that the U.S. authorities would go to deport her.
Ms. Srinivasan had “self-deported” or voluntarily left the United States after her visa was revoked for allegedly “advocating for violence and terrorism” and involvement in activities supporting the Palestinian group Hamas.
Ms. Srinivasan said that last Sunday evening, her service as a Teaching Assistant and her I20 visa were terminated and she was “disenrolled” following which she had 15 days grace period to leave the country. “It’s kind of inexplicable how it happened. There aren’t any legal grounds to deport me,” said Ms. Srinivasan elaborating how she witnessed a marked change in the behaviour of university authorities, including the Dean of Student Affairs in Columbia University in those few tense days.
“My lawyers tell me very frankly that this is unprecedented but also unpredictable. There are so many facets of the F1 visa over which the Department of State has full discretion. So, we don’t really know what they are charging me with but it seems like that they will charge me with something,” said Ms. Srinivasan adding that “there is no de-escalation” from the side of the U.S. authorities. She also said that she is “super afraid of retaliation at this point” without elaborating what exactly could be the source of that “retaliation”.
Ms. Srinivasan said that during this time over the past one and half weeks, she had heard of several students who were facing similar charges of activism and are being similarly deported. She also said that she wants to come back to India from Canada. “I have not slept in almost a week. I thought it would be easier to negotiate with Columbia from here. But it is obviously not the case,” said Ms Srinivasan who indicated campus life and sense of security of students is breaking apart under pressure from “various things on campus”, referring to the heated debates over Israel vs Palestine politics on campus. She said that her being disenrolled has affected her students as she was also working as a Teaching Assistant in Barnard College of Columbia University.
“Columbia itself has a long history of dissent. That is the case with most universities in the U.S., as they are generally places of fierce contestation of ideas. The issue here is that some of these contestations started devolving into some kind of violent responses, which we should stay away from,” explained Ms. Srinivasan. “While I have been framed as an activist, I have actually done zero activism. I was doing my research near Bengaluru during that time,” said Ms. Srinivasan, adding that official search warrants “accused Columbia [University] of harbouring illegal aliens.
“I have done nothing wrong. I was a Fulbright scholar, I was at Harvard and now I am in Columbia. I have no criminal record. I have no criminal past. I do feel like that if it can happen to someone who does not have the markings of someone who is usually targeted, then it could really happen to anyone with an F1 visa as the University is supposed to protect us as in a way we are all strangers in a foreign land,” said Ms. Srinivasan seeking help from the Government of India to support her in getting the F1 visa so that she could complete her PhD thesis.
Published – March 16, 2025 01:11 am IST
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‘Super afraid of retaliation’, says Indian PhD candidate Ranjani Srinivasan who ‘self deported’ from U.S.
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