'I have lost faith': Cornell PhD suing Trump over protest executive orders flees U.S. before deportation
Source: The Independent
Tuesday 01 April 2025 03:44 BST
A Cornell PhD student who was threatened with an immigration arrest during the middle of a constitutional lawsuit against the Trump administration announced on Monday he was fleeing the country.
“Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Momodou Taal wrote on X. “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted.” “I feel like a stranger in my country,” his attorney Eric Lee added in a separate statement on X. “What is America if people like Momodou are not welcome here?”
Taal, a citizen of the UK and The Gambia, is one of three academics who sued the Trump administration earlier this month, alleging a pair of January executive orders have the effect of unconstitutionally threatening to deport non-citizens who protest the administration and its allies like Israel.
The directives at issue call for agencies to investigate and potentially remove non-citizens in the U.S. who “bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles” and “advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.” Taal argued the orders violated the First Amendment and Fifth Amendments based on “vague, subjective, and overbroad standards that grant unfettered discretion to government officials.”
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/momodou-taal-trump-lawsuit-cornell-b2724968.html
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