New York, New York – Israel's war in Gaza is personal for Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.
Khalil, a 29-year-old Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, wanted to get involved in campus anti-war activism, but he was nervous.
Khalil faced a dilemma common to international students: he was in the United States on an F-1 student visa. His ability to remain in the country depended on him remaining enrolled as a full-time student.
But participating in a protest — including the encampment that sprang up on the Columbia lawn last month — meant risking suspension and other punishments that could jeopardize your registration status.
“From the beginning, I decided to stay away from the public eye and media attention or high-risk activities,” Khalil said. “I considered the camp 'high risk.'”
Instead, he chose to be the lead negotiator for Columbia University's Apartheid Divest, a student group that pressures school administrators to sever ties with Israel and groups involved in abuses against Palestinians.
“I'm one of the lucky ones who can defend the rights of Palestinians, the people who are being murdered in Palestine,” Khalil said, calling his advocacy work “literally the least I could do.”
Khalil explained that he worked closely with the university to ensure that his activities did not cause him problems. Based on his conversations with school leaders, he considered it unlikely that he would be punished.
Still, on April 30, Khalil received an email from Columbia administrators saying he had been suspended, citing his alleged involvement in the camp.
“I was surprised,” Khalil said. “It was ridiculous that they suspended the negotiator.”
legal danger
However, a day later, before Khalil could even appeal the decision, the university sent him an email informing him that his suspension had been lifted.
“After reviewing our records and reviewing evidence with Columbia University Public Safety, it was determined to rescind your provisional suspension,” the brief three-sentence email said.
Khalil said he even received a call from the Columbia University chancellor's office, apologizing for the mistake.
But legal experts and civil rights advocates warn that even temporary suspensions could have serious consequences for students who rely on educational visas to remain in the country.
Naz Ahmad, co-founder of the Creating Accountability and Accountability in Law Enforcement project at CUNY School of Law, told Al Jazeera that when a student visa holder is no longer enrolled full-time, the university is required to report the student to the Department of Homeland Security within 21 days.
That department oversees immigration services for the United States government. Students must then make plans to leave, or risk eventual deportation proceedings.
“If they don't leave immediately, they will start accumulating illegal presence,” Ahmad said. “And that may affect your ability to reapply for other benefits in the future.”
Ann Block, senior attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, told Al Jazeera that most schools have a designated official to monitor the status of international students.
“Usually they are international student advisors and they are the ones that help people get into school, get their visas to come to school from abroad initially and usually advise them,” Block explained.
Even outside of the academic context, non-citizens face the possibility of greater consequences if they decide to protest.
While noncitizens enjoy many of the same civil rights as U.S. citizens (including the right to free speech), experts said laws like the Patriot Act can limit how those protections apply.
Passed after the 9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act includes broad language that could be used to interpret protests as “terrorist” activity, according to civil rights attorney and New York University professor Elizabeth OuYang.
And the law empowers the government to restrict immigration to anyone who engages in such activity, he added.
“Section 411 of the Patriot Act prohibits entry to noncitizens who have used their 'position of prominence in any country to support or defend terrorist activities,'” OuYang said.
“And what constitutes terrorist activity? And that's where the US Secretary of State has broad discretion to interpret that.”
Avoiding the front lines
The high level of scrutiny towards protests at universities has amplified fears that such consequences could be invoked.
After all, criticism of Israel is a sensitive topic in the United States, the country's longtime ally.
While a study published in May indicated that 97 percent of protests at American universities were peaceful, politicians on both sides of the aisle have continued to raise fears of violence and anti-Semitic hatred.
Last week, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles introduced a bill called the Study Abroad Act that would eliminate student visas “for unlawful riots or protests, and for other purposes.”
He cited the recent wave of university protests as motivation for sponsoring the legislation and compared protesters to terrorists.
“Many elite American universities have damaged their hard-earned reputations by opening their doors to impressionable sympathizers of terrorism,” Ogles told The Daily Caller, a right-wing site.
Some international students who spoke to Al Jazeera said the charged political atmosphere forced them to avoid protests altogether.
“We can't take the risk as international students of being caught on the spot,” said a journalism student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), who requested anonymity so he could speak freely.
Another student added that he doesn't even feel comfortable reporting the protests live for UCLA Radio, the student station where he works.
Other students explained that they have played peripheral roles in the protests, offering supplies and services rather than occupying camps and confronting police.
An undocumented Columbia University student originally from Mexico said she joined a supply “platoon” to help distribute materials and move tents. She asked to be identified only by her first initial, A.
“None of this means there is no risk,” he said. “I feel like I can find a way out. But I'm not necessarily going to stand in front of a police officer.”
On April 29, Columbia student organizers even warned their classmates over megaphones to leave the camp if they attended school on a visa, for fear of suspensions. A, the undocumented student, said her parents also encouraged her not to participate in the protest.
“It's very difficult to be a spectator when that would go against my beliefs,” he explained. “I can't watch children die.”
A chilling effect
A South African student at Columbia, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for her immigration status, said that, in fact, it was the American tradition of campus activism that drew her to the school.
“I came here knowing that there were anti-apartheid protests in South Africa. There were protests in ’68 for Vietnam, for Harlem,” she said.
But after facing disciplinary warnings for his activism this year, he explained that he had to reduce his activity.
“The combination of xenophobia and extreme surveillance makes the way I choose to participate in this movement different than if I were a citizen,” she said.
The police crackdown on campus protests has also had a chilling effect, several international students told Al Jazeera.
Estimates put the number of university protesters arrested over the past month at over 2,000. This Thursday alone, 47 people at the University of California, Irvine, were detained, according to campus officials.
Olya, a Thai student from Columbia, was among those who participated in the camp at her school in its early days. She provided Al Jazeera only her name, also citing immigration concerns.
But when school administrators set a deadline for protesters to disband or face suspension, Olya decided she had reached her limit.
“That's when I stopped going to camp more often because it made me realize that you don't really know what the manager is going to do,” Olya said.
“I think my fears of being arrested somewhat overshadow my interest in advocacy and activism in general. Especially in this country.”
