U.N. Human Rights Watchdogs Blast Columbia for Using Immigration Status to Suppress Students’ Pro-Palestine Speech

A commission of top United Nations human rights watchdogs sent a series of blistering letters to the heads of five U.S. universities raising sharp concerns over the treatment of pro-Palestine students, The Intercept has learned.

The letters, which were sent on October 14 to the presidents and provosts of Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Minnesota State, and Tufts universities, called out school officials and U.S. law enforcement agencies for cracking down on student protesters and subsequently using immigration authorities to single out foreign students for detention and deportation.

“We are highly concerned over reports that students were arrested, suspended, and expelled, and lost their university accommodation, campus access, and their immigration status merely because of assembling peacefully to express their solidarity with victims of the conflict in Gaza,” wrote the group of U.N. special rapporteurs, independent experts who monitor human rights violations. “We fear that such pressure and public attacks on scholars and institutions can result in repression of free expression and in self-censorship, thus damaging academic freedom and the autonomy of universities.”

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The letters suggest the international body has taken notice of domestic protest repression on U.S. campuses. Since President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration has weaponized immigration authorities against international students and investigations over alleged antisemitism at universities across the country — ratcheting up a crackdown on student protests for Palestine that began under former President Joe Biden.

The letter to Columbia highlighted the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Leqaa Kordia, as well as the attempted arrest of Yunseo Chung. (Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Khalil and Mahdawi both spent months in detention earlier this year. Kordia, a Palestinian student who was arrested on March 8, was still in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody as recently as December 8, according to a report by Drop Site News.

“It has been reported that the conditions of Ms. Kordia’s detention are particularly severe. Due to overcrowding, she sleeps on the floor where cockroaches and other bugs abound, and many showers and sinks do not work,” the authors wrote. “She is also not given materials her faith requires to have to pray, and she is not allowed to wear a hijab in the presence of men as her religion requires.”

The authors of the letter include Mary Lawlor, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Farida Shaheed, the special rapporteur on the right to education; Irene Khan, the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Gina Romero, the special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; and Gehad Madi, the special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. Representatives of the U.N. rapporteurs who drafted the letters did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

The U.N. letter also highlighted the cases of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts who was snatched by masked ICE agents on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25; Badar Khan Suri, the Indian-born researcher at Georgetown arrested on March 17; Momodou Taal, a Cornell grad student with dual citizenship from the United Kingdom and Gambia who was ordered to turn himself in to ICE agents on March 22; and Mohammed Hoque, a Minnesota State student arrested at his home on March 28. (Cornell, Minnesota State, and Tufts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

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In the letter, the authors singled out Columbia for bowing to pressure from the Trump administration, which they said set a standard that chilled speech nationwide.

“The restrictive measures at Columbia University reflect nationwide structural changes at universities to suppress Palestine solidarity movements,” the authors wrote.

In each letter, the authors asked the universities to provide information on the allegations of mistreatment, any measures taken by the schools to protect the rights of its students and scholars, and details on how the schools plan to safeguard the rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

“Students report self-censoring political expression, and particularly international students are withdrawing from activism due to deportation fears,” the authors wrote. “Campus organizing has diminished significantly, with activists reporting less attendance from international students who had to quit their activism because of the potential risk of repercussions. This intimidating effect extends beyond issues concerning Israel and Palestine, with students reporting reluctance to engage in any political activism.”