ICE releases Columbia scholar arrested on campus hours after Mamdani urged Trump to set her free | EUROtoday
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A Columbia University scholar arrested by immigration officers inside her campus condominium was launched from custody hours after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged President Donald Trump to let her go.
Neuroscience scholar Ellie Aghayeva was launched from federal detention in New York City Thursday afternoon.
“I am safe and okay,” she wrote to her followers on Instagram. “I am so sorry but I am in complete shock over what happened and my phone is blowing up with calls from reporters. I need a little bit of time to process everything. I will come back soon. But please don’t worry. I love you all.”
Department of Homeland Security officers “misrepresented” themselves to enter a residential constructing to arrest Aghayeva early Thursday morning, in accordance with college officers.
“Dhs illegally arrested me,” she wrote on Instagram with {a photograph} from the again of a car Thursday morning. “Please help.”
She was arrested at 6:30 a.m., in accordance with Columbia’s appearing president Claire Shipman. Agents might have “made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a ‘missing person,’” Shipman mentioned in a press release.
Her scholar visa was terminated in 2016, in accordance with a press release from Homeland Security.
The constructing supervisor and her roommate allowed officers into the condominium, a spokesperson informed The Independent.
Mamdani, who met with the president Thursday afternoon, mentioned he had shared his issues about her arrest throughout their assembly on the White House.
During a telephone name that afternoon, the president informed him she can be “released imminently,” in accordance with the mayor.
Aghayeva, who’s initially from Azerbaijan, continuously posts movies about life on campus and examine routines on Instagram, the place she has greater than 106,000 followers. The aspiring social media character has greater than 114,000 followers on TikTookay.
School of General Studies Dean Lisa Rosen-Mestch introduced the coed’s arrest in an electronic mail to General Studies college students Thursday morning, in accordance with The Columbia Spectator.
She described the arrest as “upsetting and unsettling for our community.”
Thursday’s arrest is just not the primary immigration enforcement motion on Columbia property; graduate scholar Mahmoud Khalil was arrested within the foyer of his university-owned constructing final March, igniting a authorized battle on the middle of the Trump administration’s marketing campaign to arrest and deport worldwide college students.
The arrest additionally follows campus protests demanding the college preserve stronger protections for worldwide college students in opposition to federal immigration brokers on the college.
Columbia has careworn that “all law enforcement agents must have a judicial warrant or judicial subpoena” entry nonpublic areas of the college, together with housing and lecture rooms and different buildings that require a college ID. Administrative warrants — that are issued internally by federal businesses — will not be adequate, Shipman wrote.
“Do not allow them to enter or accept service of a warrant or subpoena,” she mentioned.
New York City Council members have been additionally briefed on the incident.
“ICE has no place in our schools and universities,” Speaker Julie Menin mentioned in a joint assertion with City Councilman Shaun Abreu.
“These activities do not make our city or country safer, but rather drive mistrust and danger,” they added. “As Columbia College alumni, our hearts are with the community there, and we have been in contact with the University to offer our assistance.”
Khalil continues to battle the Trump administration’s makes an attempt to take away him from the nation after his launch from an immigration detention middle in Louisiana final yr.
Khalil, a authorized everlasting resident of the United States and a distinguished scholar activist in opposition to Israel’s conflict in Gaza, was stripped of his inexperienced card and arrested final March after Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally signed off on his removing, baselessly alleging Khalil and others promoted antisemitism and supplied materials assist for terrorist teams, in accordance with paperwork submitted in courtroom filings.
He was jailed for greater than 100 days whereas his authorized staff fought for his launch, and federal judges have lambasted the administration’s “unconstitutional conspiracy” to violate the First Amendment rights of worldwide college students and school.
An immigration courtroom choose has ordered his removing to Syria or Algeria over allegations that he omitted data from a inexperienced card utility, which his authorized staff referred to as meritless.
Mohsen Mahdawi, one other Columbia scholar focused by Rubio, was additionally granted launch from federal custody after he was arrested throughout a citizenship interview final yr. An immigration courtroom choose has terminated his removing proceedings, discovering no foundation to deport him.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ice-columbia-university-arrest-student-b2928310.html