It had to be spam. That’s what 37-year-old Ranjani Srinivasan thought when she first received an email from the United States consulate in Chennai, the southern Indian city where the Columbia University PhD candidate originally hails from.
The email, which landed in her inbox at midnight, had gone unnoticed by Srinivasan as she prepared for bed. But on Thursday, March 6, at approximately 7:50 AM in New York City, it was nearly the first thing she noticed upon waking in her Columbia apartment. Still half-asleep, she grabbed her phone, its screen flickering in the soft morning light. And then she saw it – the email that had been waiting for her all night long.
She quickly checked the WhatsApp group for her PhD cohort to see if anyone else had received similar messages regarding their visas – but no one had. Feeling uneasy, Srinivasan immediately entered her information on the US online immigration portal. “It said my visa had been revoked. That’s when I started getting scared,” she remembers.
This marked the beginning of ten days filled with confusion and fear for Srinivasan, culminating in her name and a blurred image from an airport surveillance camera making international headlines after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled her a “terrorist sympathizer” on X.
At that point, Srinivasan was in Canada, staying with family and friends, having flown out of New York on March 11, four days prior to Noem’s post, after realizing she might be arrested – even though the US government had yet to clarify whether she was accused of any crime. She firmly denies the implication that she supports terrorism, surmising that her visa was revoked due to her online advocacy for Palestine amidst Israel’s devastating conflict in Gaza.
She recalls how she spent her last few days in New York before her departure, unable to sleep and hardly able to eat, flinching at every unusual sound – a life she is desperate to avoid returning to.
The Knock on the Door
At around 8:30 AM, she contacted Columbia’s International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO) for clarification regarding her visa revocation and its implications for her status in the US. There was no emergency hotline available.
“When they didn’t respond, I reached out to my dean and adviser – everyone. They had to pressure ISSO to get a reply.”
Finally hearing back late in the afternoon, the ISSO reassured her that she was “perfectly fine” and that her Form I-20 – the crucial document that foreign students in the US require to remain legally – was still valid.
They then suggested scheduling an adviser appointment. Although they initially offered a slot for the following Tuesday, upon her insistence that the situation was urgent, they moved the meeting up to the next day, Thursday, March 7.
Logging into a Zoom call with the ISSO representative at 10:30 AM the next day, she was reassured once again that her Form I-20 was still in good standing.
“The moment I got this information, I felt much lighter,” Ranjani recalls. “I started to consider when I could go back to the field [for research].” Her visa had been renewed until 2029 in December 2024, originally set to expire in August 2025, and she contemplated potential reasons for her visa revocation.
“Maybe they just gave me too long of a visa,” she thought.
“All of these thoughts raced through my mind. I was also weighing whether I should go back to teaching my 60 students, starting to work with them again.”
But just ten minutes into the Zoom call, there was a knock on the door.
Her American flatmate, home at the time, sensed something was off about the knock. “Without opening the door, she asked them to identify themselves,” Srinivasan recounts.
The individuals at the door initially claimed to be police and then identified themselves as “supervisors,” without showing any credentials, according to Srinivasan. When her flatmate queried, “Supervisor of what?”, they replied, “Immigration,” Srinivasan remembers.
They indicated from behind the door that her visa had been revoked and that they intended to initiate removal proceedings against her. They ultimately left, and despite not fully identifying themselves, Srinivasan believes they were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
“I panicked. Why is ICE at my door? You live in Columbia residential housing – a place you’d think would be safe. The fact that they were able to access Columbia’s residential area without a warrant was terrifying,” she shares.
Remaining on the call, Srinivasan immediately informed the ISSO adviser. “She looked shocked,” Srinivasan recounts. “Then she muted herself and began calling people urgently.”
When the ISSO adviser returned to the call, she handed Srinivasan a list of attorneys and urged her to contact Public Safety – the campus security team. Public Safety advised her not to open the door to ICE officials and assured her that they would “file a report.” However, this did little to assuage her fears.
In a statement to Al Jazeera, Kendall Easley, a spokesperson for Columbia’s ISSO, stated that “consistent with our longstanding practice, law enforcement must have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including residential University buildings.”
Nevertheless, Srinivasan asserts, “they [law enforcement officers] were on campus.”
“At that moment, I realized that no one was really aiding me. I sat in the apartment for another two hours, utterly frightened – jumpy. The walls in our building aren’t thick, so any sound in the corridor made me flinch, thinking they were back with a warrant.”
Overwhelmed by the anxiety of potentially being detained at any moment, she quickly packed and left for a location she prefers not to disclose. There was no time to be sentimental – just a quiet departure with a laptop bag, her PhD notebook, a few chargers, and a small carry-on filled with clothes, a shampoo bottle, and a box of tampons. “I just took the bag I usually grab for the office,” she recalls.
She walked out of the flat she had called home since 2021, leaving behind everything; her furniture, all her remaining possessions, the Indian groceries she had ordered the previous night, and her beloved cat, Cricket.
The Final Straw
Srinivasan notes that Danielle Smoller, the dean of student affairs at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, called her on March 7 after hearing from public safety about the visit from immigration officials.
“She was sympathetic but admitted it ‘felt like ISSO and even Columbia are not in control,’” Srinivasan recounted. She claims Columbia made no further attempts to assist her.
The ISSO did not specifically respond to Al Jazeera’s inquiries regarding Srinivasan’s assertion that Columbia made minimal additional efforts to assist her. “Columbia has taken and will continue to take all necessary actions to ensure our international students and scholars know they are welcome on our campus and in our community,” Easley, the spokesperson, asserted. “We take pride in our longstanding history of welcoming students and scholars from around the globe to learn, teach, and grow with us.”
That did not match Srinivasan’s feelings.
On March 8 at 6:20 PM, the agents returned – again without a warrant. “My flatmate informed me that they stated, ‘We’re going to keep coming every day until we can initiate removal proceedings,’” Srinivasan said. Her flatmate did not engage with the agents, as she later told Srinivasan.
On that same day, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate who held a Green Card – making him a permanent resident of the US – was arrested in Columbia housing. Khalil had been a prominent leader in the pro-Palestinian protests on campus over the preceding year.
“The moment Mahmoud was arrested, it sent shockwaves throughout the Columbia community. He was a Green Card holder,” Srinivasan remarked. “That’s when I realized I have no rights in this system at all. It was just a matter of time before they caught up with me.
“The truth is, I didn’t even know Mahmoud. I hadn’t even heard his name until he disappeared,” she added. “What truly unsettled me was that Columbia was aware of ICE operating on campus – yet seemed uninterested in intervening and even appeared to be colluding with them before Mahmoud vanished.”
On March 9, the ISSO informed Srinivasan that her student status had been revoked. Following this, Columbia officially withdrew her enrollment and instructed her to vacate university housing.
Understanding that her time in the US was over, Srinivasan wasn’t willing to wait to be deported. On March 11, she left for Canada using a visitor visa she had previously obtained for academic workshops and conferences.
Branded a ‘Terrorist Sympathizer’
After her departure from the US, Srinivasan’s lawyers informed ICE of her exit on March 14. ICE responded by requesting proof.
Her legal team was still gathering evidence of her departure when, on March 14, Noem tweeted a now-infamous security camera clip of Srinivasan at LaGuardia airport, labeling her a “terrorist sympathizer” and asserting that those who “advocate terrorism and violence” should not be allowed to remain in the US.
The accusation shocked Srinivasan. “It was the first time I was hearing such claims from an official source,” she says. “If advocating for human rights or ending a genocide is equated with supporting Hamas, then anyone near me – without my doing anything – could just be arrested and made an example of.”
She believes she was targeted for her verbal statements and limited online actions, which included posts and shares critical of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. While she had signed several open letters supporting Palestinian rights, she insists she was never part of an organized campus group. Although she had participated in pro-Palestinian protests in the past, she says she wasn’t even in the US for most of April 2024, when student-led demonstrations intensified across campuses.
The official statement also claimed that she had “self-deported” using the recently launched US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home app, designed for undocumented immigrants to submit an ‘intent to depart’ form and leave voluntarily. However, Srinivasan maintains that she had never even heard of this app.
Al Jazeera reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with several questions: What specific grounds were used for Srinivasan’s visa revocation? Was she informed of the reasons beforehand? And does DHS have any evidence linking her to activities that warranted such actions? The department has yet to respond.
“The tweet was the first instance I could clearly see that they had associated me with the protests,” she states.
In a statement to Al Jazeera, the Student Workers of Columbia (UAW Local 2710), which represents over 3,000 graduate and undergraduate student workers at the prestigious university, noted that “Ranjani’s case reveals a troubling precedent.”
“An exception is being created for protests where anyone even discussing Palestine is being targeted.”
The union argued that graduate students on campus today feel increasingly exposed. “International students, in particular, feel disposable – at the mercy of the state, without protection or support from the university,” the statement articulated.
SWC accused Columbia of enabling this suppression. “Trump abducted our classmates and cut our research funding – but none of this could have happened without Columbia feeding the narrative that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, stoking hostility towards pro-Palestinian protests.
“International and undocumented students are afraid to leave their homes, let alone teach classes, attend lectures, or go to labs,” the statement added. “Fighting for Ranjani’s reinstatement is not just about fundamental rights – it’s about our survival.”
In the week leading up to her departure for Canada, Srinivasan’s anxiety was further heightened by her concerns about how to break the news to her parents. She wanted to control how her family learned about the situation, fearing that the media might get word first. Eventually, she called her father and mother, informing them of her visa revocation while assuring them she was okay. “I reassured them, but I didn’t divulge all the details about ICE pursuing me. Of course, now they are aware of the entire story,” she reflects.
On the day the DHS tweet was released, fear took control. Her parents were even worried for their safety in Chennai and sought refuge with relatives, uncertain of how to respond. “We are just an ordinary family. Who would ever imagine something like this happening to them?” Srinivasan laments.
Their fears were not unfounded. As the tweet circulated, so did misinformation, especially within the Indian media, where speculation and inaccurate reporting regarding her name only heightened their anxiety. Only after things began to settle and they felt safer did her parents return home.
Now, even if her visa is reinstated and Columbia reinstates her enrollment, Srinivasan is uncertain about whether she would feel secure returning to the US to finish her PhD. “I hope Columbia reconsiders and reinstates me,” she expresses. “All the prerequisites for my PhD are completed, and everything remaining doesn’t even necessitate my presence in the US. So I am appealing to Columbia to facilitate that.”
However, regardless of the outcome, Srinivasan experiences a profound sense of betrayal.
“I dedicated five years to Columbia, sometimes working – I don’t know – maybe 100 hours a week,” she states. “I never anticipated the institution would let me down. But it did.”
