Momodou Taal, a British-Gambian PhD student at Cornell University was already facing deportation after he participated in pro-Palestinian protests. He had been suspended by the Ivy League school in New York at least twice. On Monday, he said that he had left the United States, becoming one of several international students at the Trump administration’s mercy following their contribution to campus protests.

Sharing his side of the story, the Cornell student took to his X profile this week to push out a statement about his current status. “Today I took the decision to leave the United States, free and with my head held high,” he shared a lengthy piece on Monday. “For those following this story: I decided to sue the Trump administration with the hope that it would offer reprieve for myself and other similarly situated persons. But Trump did not want me to have my day in court and sent ICE agents to my home and revoked my visa.”

He continued, “We held out but our first motion was denied. We were due to submit a second briefing with the hope that I could stay out stay out detention whilst the lawsuit progressed.” Further stating how he had lost faith that “a favourable ruling from courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Momodou Taal added that the situation has spiralled out of control the extent that he has even “lost faith I could walk the street without being abducted.”

Momodou Taal added that even though it was not the outcome he wanted “a government that has no respect for the judiciary or for the rule of the law” has left him with no choice but to leave on his “own terms.”

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Cornell student Momodou Taal sued Trump admin

Like Yunseo Chung, a South Korean-origin Columbia student and legal permanent resident in US, 31-year-old Momodou Taal — who had not been detained — filed a suit to block his detention in court. He remained absent for a previous hearing in the court case as he feared that he would be taken into custody. “This process is imminently hanging over me, and it has impacted every aspect of my life. I feel like a prisoner already, although all I have done is exercise my rights,” he wrote in court papers, per the New York Times.

Who is Momodou Taal, British-Gambian Cornell student leaving US?

Momodou Taal arrived in Cornell in 2022 to pursue a PhD in Africana studies. Having grown up in the UK, the Cornell student comes from a political family — great grandson of Gambia’s first president, Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara. Following the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, he posted online, “Glory to the Resistance.” With a joint UK and Gambian citizenship, he was in the US on the student visa F-1 program.

As the war broke out in Gaza, he joined the new campus organisation, the Cornell Coalition for Mutual Liberation. As one of the leaders of the campus protests, he led chants at a protest outside Cornell’s Day Hall in February 2024 when the university’s student assembly rejected a resolution urging Cornell to divest from partnerships with companies providing weapons to Israel.

“We are in solidarity with the armed resistance in Palestine from the river to the sea,” Taal told the crowd after the vote. He told NYT that he views it as a call for ‘Palestinian liberation’ despite some Jews interpreting it as a genocidal call pushing for the ellimination of the state of Israel. When asked about his October 7 post, the Cornell student firmly denied supporting Hamas. “What I support is the Palestinian right to resist to colonialism, as guaranteed by international law and the principle of self determination,” he clarified.

Trump admin smearing pro-Palestine international students as pro-Hamas

Signing an executive order on January 29, US President Donald Trump said that the country sought to use “all available and appropriate legal tool” to “remove” international presences engaging in “unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” Momodou Taal, however, has asserted that even though people may not like the things he’s said, he’s “never been violent… never been convicted of a crime… never been arrested.”

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With Trump administration officials previously contending how a “visa is a privilege, not a right,” the Department of Homeland Security also confirmed in a statement that the British Cornell student had exited the US. “It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked,” they remarked.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that over 300 international students’ visas had been revoked. “Maybe more; it might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” he told reporters at a press conference, adding, “Every country in the world has a right to decide who comes in as a visitor and who doesn’t.” He recently launched the AI-powered app “Catch and Revoke,” which has smeared pro-Palestine activists as “pro-jihadist,” i.e. supporters of Hamas or other militant organisations.

On the day of his US exit, Thomas Scripps, assistant national secretary of the UK’s Socialist Equality Party, revealed on X he “delivered a letter on behalf of @SEP_Britain to Foreign Secretary David Lammy, raising the case of @MomodouTaal and insisting the British government act to defend the rights of its citizen against the attacks of the Trump administration.”