Federal brokers with the Division of Homeland Safety apparently lied their means right into a Columbia College dormitory and arrested a scholar there, the college’s performing president Claire Shipman stated in an announcement Thursday morning.
The brokers entered her campus housing in Morningside Heights at round 6:30 a.m., Shipman stated. “Our understanding presently is that the federal brokers made misrepresentations to achieve entry to the constructing to seek for a ‘lacking individual.’ We’re working to collect extra particulars.”
Whereas Shipman didn’t title the arrested scholar, Columbia scholar Ellie Aghayeva filed a habeas corpus petition asking a federal decide to order her launch in a while Thursday morning.
Aghayeva, who’s from Azerbaijan, is an undergraduate learning neuroscience and political science who got here to the USA on a visa 2016, in line with her petition. Her attorneys didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
DHS officers “represented that they didn’t have a warrant for Petitioner,” the submitting reads. The brokers as a substitute “represented they had been looking for a lacking individual to achieve entry.”
Within the early hours of Thursday morning, Aghayeva had pushed out an pressing Instagram story.
“Dhs illegally arrested me. Please assist,” the put up learn.
In an announcement from an unnamed DHS official, the division confirmed ICE had arrested Aghayeva, calling her, “an unlawful alien from Azerbaijan, whose scholar visa was terminated in 2016 below the Obama administration for failing to attend courses.”
“The constructing supervisor and her roommate let officers into the residence. She has no pending appeals or functions with DHS,” the assertion learn. It didn’t deal with Shipman’s competition that the officers had misidentified themselves to achieve entry.
Aghayeva’s title, and her Instagram put up, had been first reported on by the Columbia Spectator. In contrast to the scholars focused in Trump’s earlier crackdown on Columbia final 12 months for his or her activism in opposition to Israel, Aghayeva’s account, which has greater than 100,000 followers, is usually about her life as a scholar at Columbia.
Shipman famous in her assertion that “all legislation enforcement brokers will need to have a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena to entry private areas of the College, together with housing, school rooms, and areas requiring CUID swipe entry. An administrative warrant isn’t enough.”
However as information unfold of Aghayeva’s arrest Thursday, a crowd of offended school, college students and different demonstrators gathered outdoors Columbia’s gates to decry the arrest and the college’s response to it.
“I’m fairly appalled that they had been even capable of get on our campus as a result of they’re all the time insisting that our security is their primary precedence and we have now fairly loopy safety on campus, so I simply don’t perceive how they had been capable of get on campus,” stated an undergraduate scholar named Hope, who declined to supply her final title.
“This could not have occurred,” she stated.
Melanie Wall, a professor of biostatistics who joined the demonstrators, stated school had been urgent administration for extra safeguards for worldwide college students because the ICE arrests final 12 months concentrating on scholar activist to no avail.
“All people who’s completed any ICE watch coaching is aware of that they’re going to lie. Our safety can’t ask the best questions and truly verify for ID?”
“We don’t let folks on campus and not using a warrant, blah, blah, blah,” Wall stated, referring to Shipman’s assertion concerning the arrest. “That’s actually what occurred. So it’s simply basic gaslighting.”
The most recent arrest got here after a string of them final 12 months during which DHS and ICE brokers focused college students and others who’d participated in campus encampments protesting in 2024 in opposition to the struggle in Gaza.
ICE brokers entered Mahmoud Khalil’s campus housing and arrested him final march. He then spent 104 days in ICE detention earlier than a federal decide ordered his launch whereas his immigration case continues.
Khalil grew to become a outstanding determine within the 2024 campus protests the place he acted as a lead negotiator between scholar activists camped out on a campus garden calling for the college to divest from Israeli pursuits amid the continuing struggle in Gaza and campus directors.
One focused scholar, Ranjani Srinivasan, fled to Canada, whereas one other, Yunseo Chung, went into hiding till her arrest was blocked by a federal decide.
One other one who participated within the protests, Leqaa Kordia, remains to be in ICE detention in Texas. Kordia, who by no means attended Columbia, was arrested for remaining within the nation with an expired visa after her sealed protest arrest report was shared with the Division of Homeland Safety by the NYPD.
New York elected officers swiftly slammed the arrest.
“ICE has no place in our faculties and universities,” Council Speaker Julie Menin and Majority Chief Shaun Abreu wrote in a joint assertion. “These actions don’t make our metropolis or nation safer, however somewhat drive distrust and hazard. As Columbia Faculty alumni, our hearts are with the group there, and we have now been in touch with the College to supply our help.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who traveled to Washington on Tuesday to fulfill with President Trump, didn’t instantly touch upon the arrest.
Katie Honan contributed to this report.
Associated
