US Justice Department probing whether Columbia University hid ‘illegal alien’ students
Investigation comes as Trump administration intensifies campaign to deport foreigners who took part in anti-Israel protests
NEW YORK — The US Justice Department is investigating whether Columbia University concealed “illegal aliens” on its campus, one of its top officials said Friday, as the Trump administration intensified its campaign to deport foreigners who participated in anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school last year.
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security searched two university residences with a warrant Thursday evening. No one was arrested, and it was unclear whom the authorities were searching for. But by Friday afternoon, US officials had announced developments related to two people they had pursued in connection with the demonstrations.
A Columbia doctoral student from India whose visa was revoked by the Trump administration fled the US on an airliner. And a Palestinian woman who had been arrested during the protests at the university last April was arrested by federal immigration authorities in Newark, New Jersey, on charges that she overstayed an expired visa.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking at the Justice Department, said it was all part of the president’s “mission to end antisemitism in this country.”
“Just last night, we worked with the Department of Homeland Security to execute search warrants from an investigation into Columbia University for harboring and concealing illegal aliens on its campus,” Blanche said. “That investigation is ongoing, and we are also looking at whether Columbia’s handling of earlier incidents violated civil rights laws and included terrorism crimes.”
Blanche didn’t say what evidence agents had of wrongdoing by the university. It was unclear whether he was accusing the school itself of “terrorism crimes” or saying that people involved in the protests had committed such crimes.
The Associated Press left messages seeking comment from the university about Blanche’s accusations Friday.
In a note to the school community following the searches Thursday night, interim university president Katrina Armstrong said Columbia was “committed to upholding the law.” She described herself as “heartbroken” that federal agents had been on campus searching student rooms.
“I understand the immense stress our community is under,” Armstrong wrote. “Despite the unprecedented challenges, Columbia University will remain a place where the pursuit of knowledge is cherished and fiercely protected, where the rule of law and due process is respected and never taken for granted, and where all members of our community are valued and able to thrive.”
Columbia has come under immense pressure from the Trump administration in recent weeks, with the US government canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the school, much of it for medical research, as punishment for not cracking down harder on students and faculty who took part in anti-Israel activities last spring in protest of the war in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump and other officials have accused the protesters as being “pro-Hamas.” The war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
The administration threatened to permanently end federal funding to the Ivy League school unless it took a variety of steps, including changing its admissions process and ceding faculty control of its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department to a receiver for five years.
It also demanded that the school ban people from wearing masks on campus, change how it recruits international students, adopt a new definition of antisemitism, and abolish its student disciplinary process.
Students and faculty who participated in last year’s protests at Columbia have insisted that criticizing Israel and advocating for Palestinian rights isn’t antisemitic. Some Jewish students and faculty, though, said that the rhetoric made them feel unsafe and often veered into outright antisemitism.
Columbia University’s campus has been in crisis since the arrest last week of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who helped lead last spring’s protests. The White House has said Khalil was detained and faces deportation due to his protest group distributing pro-Hamas propaganda. Federal law prohibits aliens from espousing support for terror groups.
The Trump administration said Friday it had revoked the visa of Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen and doctoral student at Columbia, for “advocating for violence and terrorism.” Srinivasan opted to “self-deport” Tuesday, the department said. Officials didn’t say what evidence they had that Srinivasan had advocated violence.
Her lawyers denied the accusations, and she told The New York Times that she wasn’t involved in organizing any Columbia protests.
According to the newspaper, the Department of Homeland Security said Srinivasan didn’t disclose two protest-related summonses on her visa renewal application last year.
Srinivasan told the newspaper she had received the summonses — for allegedly refusing to disperse and obstructing foot or vehicle traffic — after simply getting caught up in a crowd of protesters while trying to return to her apartment from a picnic last year. She said she left the summonses off her renewal form because her case had been dismissed.
The woman who was arrested in Newark, Leqaa Kordia, was charged with failing to leave the US after her visa expired. Columbia said it had no record of Kordia ever being a student there or being arrested on the campus. However, there were numerous protests and arrests in the streets outside of the university at the same time.
Kordia had previously received a student visa, but it was terminated in 2022 for “lack of attendance,” the department said. She is being held in an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, according to a government database.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Friday the Trump administration is expecting to revoke more student visas in the coming days.
Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.