On Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge in New York’s Northern District heard opening arguments in the case of Momodou Taal v. Trump. Neither party was present in the courtroom—in large part because Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has been trying to find Taal for days, reportedly staking out his home and entering his university’s campus.
Taal, a British-Gambian doctoral student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, sued the administration on February 15 to challenge Trump’s executive orders curtailing free speech and seeking to deport pro-Palestinian activists, which have been paired with a wave of attacks by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers—in some cases masked and hooded—on graduate and undergraduate students.
I hate how they always mention they’re trying to tie Pro-Palestinian activities with antisemitism. Antisemitism isn’t fucking illegal.
What also pisses me off is anything pro-Palestine is de facto pro-Hamas. The Feds are holding these students hostage because they are furthering “terrorism” on US soil.
They also say these foreign students are engaged in un-American activities, but the most American activity should be free speech and protesting the government…
Well that isn’t the issue, it’s that anything which isn’t 100% in favor of the Israeli state is being equated with antisemitism.
even if they were saying that they hate jews, and being actually anti-semitic, it is still perfectly legal and should not be grounds for deportation, regardless.
I’m saying that it doesn’t matter at all what the content of the speech was. Free speech is free speech. No government censorship or reprisals should be tolerated.