Cornell Tells Deportation-Threatened Pro-Palestine Students: Come Back or Lose Funding

Cornell University is threatening to cut off funding for two graduate students unless they return to campus this fall, even though the Trump administration has been actively pursuing both of them for deportation over pro-Palestine protest activity.

Momodou Taal, a British-Gambian dual citizen, and Amandla Thomas-Johnson, a British citizen, fled to Cairo in March 2025 after Homeland Security Investigations, the intelligence arm of ICE, began pursuing both men. Taal was ordered to appear at an ICE office. Agents showed up at his student housing. Their attorneys say it is unclear whether formal deportation orders exist, but both students believe they would be detained the moment they set foot back in the United States.

According to Taal and Cornell graduate student union president Ewa Nizalowska, the university had previously told both men they could complete their degrees remotely while keeping their funding. Now Cornell says they must teach on campus in Ithaca or lose that money entirely.

"Either they knew I can't come back, which is probably most likely, or they actually want me to come back and get arrested on arrival," Taal told The Intercept.

A protest over weapons makers, then a reversal

The roots of the case trace back to September 2024, when Taal and Thomas-Johnson took part in a protest that shut down a Cornell job fair featuring recruiting booths for Boeing and L3Harris, both major suppliers of weapons to Israel. The university suspended both students and banned them from campus, with the threat of expulsion, a step that would have stripped their student status and opened the door to deportation.

After Donald Trump took office, Taal sued the administration over an executive order targeting pro-Palestine international students, arguing it violated First Amendment rights. Days later, ICE ordered him to surrender. Taal left the country rather than risk detention, following the pattern set by high-profile cases like Columbia's Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.

Cornell and its graduate union say the school has previously allowed other students facing visa problems to finish coursework abroad while retaining funding. Taal and Thomas-Johnson say Cornell funding is their only income, covering rent, food and health care. Losing it, they say, would leave them destitute in Cairo while facing possible detention if they return home.

"If I don't get funding, I'm going to be homeless," Taal said. Thomas-Johnson described daily anxiety over how he could possibly finish a PhD under the circumstances.

Cornell denies targeting, but timeline raises questions

A Cornell spokesperson called the suggestion that the university is targeting the students over protest activity "untrue and unfounded," and said Cornell remains "deeply committed to helping international students continue making academic progress when they encounter visa or travel-related challenges." The university declined to comment specifically on Taal and Thomas-Johnson's cases.

Cornell's statement pointed to fellowship applications as an alternative funding path. Taal said those opportunities for the coming semester closed months ago, making the offer largely symbolic.

Eric Lee, a civil rights attorney representing Taal, said Cornell is fully aware of what a return would mean. "Cornell knows full well that Momodou would be immediately detained and sent to one of the places where more people are dying than ever before," Lee said, adding that framing the funding ultimatum as fair required "a level of cynicism which can only be deliberate."

The case adds to a growing pattern in which American universities, facing federal pressure over campus Gaza protests, have walked back earlier accommodations for pro-Palestine student activists, even when doing so exposes those students to arrest, detention or deportation.