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Kidnapped: Trump’s campus crackdown

The Trump government is seizing overseas students from their homes and campuses and even off the streets, with no legal grounds and no due process, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

TARGETED: Mohsen Mahdawi speaks outside the courthouse after a judge released the Palestinian student activist on Wednesday April 30, Vermont

THEY’VE had their visas revoked, been kidnapped off the street by unidentified masked agents, have disappeared to detention centres in faraway states and have been called terrorist sympathisers by the Trump government.

This is now the lived reality for overseas students in the US. They have committed no crime, received no due process and been denied access to lawyers. In some cases, their universities — among the most prestigious in the country — have not only failed to protect them, but have played an active role in turning them in to authorities.

As of April 24, over 280 colleges and universities have identified 1,800-plus international students and recent graduates who have had their legal status changed by the State Department, according to Inside Higher Ed, which retains a tracker. At least 1,400 students are believed to be facing deportation. Many of those arrested were picked off personally by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has accused them of “involvement in pro-Palestinian protests,” which, under US law, is not a crime.

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