A foreign radical pursuing his doctorate at Cornell University was reportedly suspended twice last year and banned from campus for engaging in unlawful pro-Hamas demonstrations. Academic suspension customarily guarantees the revocation of an F-1 student visa.

The Trump State Department reportedly followed through, tearing up the visa of Momodou Taal and instructing him to surrender to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 14.

Rather than accept the consequences of his actions, Taal — a 31-year-old citizen of both Gambia and the U.K. who stated, "Glory to the resistance," as terrorists were slaughtering Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023; championed violence against so-called colonizers "by any means necessary"; called for the "end of the US empire in our lifetime"; and taught a course called "What Is Blackness?" — recently asked a judge to block his deportation and joined a pair of radicals in suing President Donald Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Taal's attorneys claimed that the Trump administration is violating foreigners' free-speech rights and attempting to remove the pro-terror Gambian from the country because he is a "pro-Palestinian activist who attended a protest."

'Taal faced suspension on more than one occasion due to his disorderly behavior and long-term pattern of disregarding the rights of other students.'

While attorneys attempted to characterize Taal as an inoffensive fly on the wall of the pro-Hamas protests he helped lead, the university claimed in an April 26, 2024, letter concerning student code of conduct violations that the foreign radical repeatedly engaged in disorderly conduct, disrupted university activities, ignored university officials' lawful directives, and made unauthorized entry to various private spaces at Cornell.

Roy Stanley, the unit chief of the Counterterrorism Intelligence Unit at ICE's Homeland Security Investigations' Office of Intelligence, said in a sworn statement, "Mr. Taal faced suspension on more than one occasion due to his disorderly behavior and long-term pattern of disregarding the rights of other students and the general public and was in fact banned from campus for a period of time while one suspension was being reviewed."

Stanley further alleged that Taal previously got physical with campus police and, per a senior associate dean at the university, "demonstrated a pattern of escalating, egregious behavior."

Taal's attorneys suggested further that the Trump administration's push to arrest and possibly deport Taal was based on the president's executive order combating anti-Semitism and his directive protecting the homeland from foreign terrorist threats — a claim the government has denied.

Trump said in a statement corresponding with the first of these two executive orders:

To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.

The lawsuit alleged that Trump's orders have "unconstitutionally silenced Plaintiffs and chilled protected expression" and asked that Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Coombe both to assume jurisdiction over the matter and to block the Trump administration from enforcing the president's two executive orders.

'I think the time is to double down, escalate.'

Attorneys for the government noted in a March 22 court filing that Taal's injunction request is unconstitutional; that his First Amendment claims are meritless; that an injunction by yet another Democrat-appointed judge would violate Article II and the separation of powers; that the foreign plaintiffs are not entitled to relief; and that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Taal's First and Fifth Amendment challenges "because it is well-established that aliens may not circumvent Congress's bar on review of discretionary immigration enforcement or channeling of available review to immigration proceedings."

The Cornell Daily Sun reported that Ethan Kanter, chief of the national security unit for the DOJ's Office of Immigration Litigation, told Coombe at a hearing Tuesday that the case should not be heard by the Northern New York District Court but instead during removal proceedings in a federal court of appeals since Taal's visa was revoked before he filed suit.

Kanter noted further that contrary to the plaintiffs' contention, the executive orders did not direct agencies to target or limit speech.

Taal's attorney indicated that the Gambian radical was not present at the hearing because he is fearful of being arrested. Taal did, however, make an appearance on "Democracy Now" on Monday, telling host Amy Goodman, "I don't think the time is to keep quiet. I think the time is to double down, escalate, keep going, and keep raising the issue of Palestine."

Various leftist groups on and off campus have signaled support for Taal.

One demonstrator outside the courthouse Tuesday suggested that Trump's executive order combating anti-Semitism amounts to a "slippery slope into fascism," then unironically quoted Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem "First They Came" about doing nothing about the targeting of Jews.

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