We share a few weeks back a wonderful series of articles detailing the arbitrary treatment of Momodou Taal by the Cornell administration.
Now it’s the turn of the federal government.
On March 15, Momodou as well as another Cornell student and a Cornell faculty member filed a lawsuit against Trump’s executive orders (14161and 14188) to the extent they authorize deportation or prosecution based on protected speech.
Early this morning, Momodou Taal was informed by the DOJ that “ICE has asked us to … invite Mr. Taal and his counsel to appear in-person … for Mr. Taal to surrender to ICE custody.”
The subject line of the email was “Momodou Taal et al v. Trump, 25-cv-335 (NDNY),” ie., Momodou’s pending case against the US government. As Taal’s lawyers put it, they are “not aware of any other instance in which the government has attempted to initiate service of an NTA [notice to appear] through the Department of Justice in response to the non-citizen filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of presidential action.”
There is every reason to suspect that the order to surrender to ICE was done in response to the lawsuit. His lawyers further suspect that it is an effort to detain Momodou Taal so as to impede his lawyers’ access to him, and to unlawfully remove the case from the Court’s jurisdiction.
Cornell Chapter of the AAUP 