The Department of Justice on Friday asked a Cornell University student who is suing the Trump administration after helping lead campus protests last year to surrender to immigration authorities, according to a new court filing.
Lawyers for Momodou Taal, a Ph.D. student who is a U.S. visa holder and a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, said in court documents that he received an email from a Department of Justice lawyer informing him for the first time that the government intended to serve him with a notice to appear — which initiates the deportation process — and an invitation to surrender to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The email did not specify when the Justice Department expects Taal to surrender to immigration authorities.
Eric Lee, one of Taal’s attorneys, told NBC News on Saturday that in the days before the email was sent, unidentified authorities showed up outside Taal’s student apartment building and began asking other residents about him. The building’s staff then asked the authorities to leave, Lee said.
“It is not yet clear what grounds for removal the government alleges exist here,” Lee said in his court filing on Friday, adding that Taal has been living in the U.S. and has been admitted into the country multiple times.
“The only changes between Mr. Taal’s last admission and now are the executive orders and the initiation of this legal action challenging them” the court filing reads. “It is plain that the government’s effort to serve and detain Mr. Taal are in reaction to this litigation.”
Lee told NBC News the court asked the Justice Department to explain its actions by 5 p.m. Saturday.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment or questions about which agency sought out Taal at his home.
Cornell University did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security also did not respond.
Last weekend, Taal and two U.S. citizens challenged the Trump administration’s executive orders to “combat anti-semitism” on college campuses and expel foreign nationals who the administration says pose national security threats.
Taal, 31, and the other plaintiffs have argued that the orders violate the free speech rights of international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinians in Gaza.
Taal’s case comes amid a wider effort by the Trump administration to exert leverage in the affairs of private institutions of higher education.
Earlier this month, the administration alarmed many observers when immigration officials arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student who led similar protests at the school last year. Khalil is fighting his deportation while detained in Louisiana. Lee said Kahlil’s arrest heightened Taal’s concerns about being apprehended by immigration authorities and helped prompt his lawsuit.
The Trump administration has cited an obscure national security clause in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to justify Khalil’s apprehension. The provision allows the secretary of state to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines their presence in the United States could adversely affect foreign policy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X earlier this month that the department would be revoking visas and green cards of noncitizens who he claims support Hamas.
Immigration officials arrested a second Columbia student, Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the West Bank who officials say overstayed her student visa. A third Columbia student, Indian national Ranjani Srinivasan, fled to Canada after her student visa was revoked. Srinivasan has claimed she did not participate in the campus protests last spring.
A doctor and professor from Brown University was deported this month after attempting to return to the U.S. from a trip to Lebanon. Homeland Security officials said Monday that the professor told them she attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the slain leader of Iran-back Hezbollah.
Most recently, a graduate student who was teaching at Georgetown University on a student visa was detained this week.
The Trump administration has also gone after the universities themselves in retaliation for the protests on college campuses last year.
On March 7, the administration announced it was stripping Columbia — which was the epicenter of the protests — of $400 million in federal grants. This week, the White House said in a statement it was pausing $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania for allowing a transgender swimmer to compete on its women’s team.
In an effort to start negotiations on restoring the federal funding, Columbia on Friday agreed to demands outlined by the Trump administration.
The university will now ban students from wearing masks at protests in most cases, modify its admissions process, hire 36 new campus security officers — who, unlike previous security officers, will have the ability to arrest students — and appoint a new senior vice provost to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian and African studies.
The moves have prompted some new protests and raised concerns nationwide about the federal government’s infringement on free speech. Some students and professors at Columbia told NBC News in recent weeks that they fear the government will come after them if they speak out.
Protests are scheduled to resume at Columbia on Monday.
CLARIFICATION (March 22, 2025, 5:10 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misconstrued part of the email Taal received. It informed him of the government’s intent to serve a notice to appear, but was not itself the notice.
