Self-deportation gives Indian student chance to re-enter US

Indian student Ranjani Srinivasan, who “self-deported” to Canada, actually evaded US authorities and avoided deportation. Had she been formally deported, she would have been barred from re-entering the US in the future.

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Srinivasan left the US for Canada within a week of receiving a notice from the US Consulate in Chennai, stating that her visa had been revoked. On March 5, her F-1 student visa was cancelled, and by March 11, she had left for Canada. In the meantime, US federal immigration agents arrived at a Columbia University apartment with a judge-signed search warrant looking for her, but she was already gone.

“The atmosphere seemed so volatile and dangerous,” The New York Times quoted Srinivasan as saying.

A Fulbright scholar pursuing a doctorate in urban planning, Srinivasan said she struggled to understand why the US State Department abruptly revoked her visa without explanation. Her legal status termination also led Columbia University to withdraw her enrolment.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later issued a statement labelling Srinivasan a “terrorist sympathiser”, accusing her of advocating violence and supporting Hamas, a terrorist organisation.

Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, posted surveillance footage on social media showing Srinivasan at LaGuardia Airport in New York, rolling a suitcase as she left for Canada.

“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America… When you advocate violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country,” Noem wrote on X.

Srinivasan’s lawyers denied the allegations, accusing the Trump administration of revoking her visa for engaging in “protected political speech”. They argued she was denied “any meaningful form of due process” to challenge the visa cancellation.

“Noem’s tweet is not only factually wrong but fundamentally un-American,” said Naz Ahmad, one of Srinivasan’s attorneys.

Srinivasan, an architect, arrived in the US in 2016 through the Fulbright programme and enrolled at Columbia in 2020. She was in the fifth year of her doctoral programme at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, expecting to graduate in May 2024.

According to video footage obtained by DHS, Srinivasan used the CBP Home app to self-deport on March 11 — just a day after the app’s launch. The self-deportation feature allows individuals staying illegally in the US to voluntarily report their departure, potentially preserving their ability to return legally in the future. Had DHS formally deported her, she would have faced a re-entry ban.