Prem Thakker

1 week ago | zeteo.com | Prem Thakker

“It’s infuriating. I think it's the new kind of antisemitism. It's just using Jews in a very cynical way.”This is what Israeli Columbia PhD student Sahar Bostock told Zeteo regarding the Trump administration’s arrest of Palestinian Columbia undergraduate Mohsen Mahdawi on Monday. And she’s not alone in feeling this way. Students and professors spoke fondly of Mahdawi, a green card holder who was detained at his scheduled citizenship interview.

1 week ago | zeteo.com | Prem Thakker

***Warning: This piece includes a discussion of sexual violence. Video: ‘Screams Before Silence’ on YouTube“Someone murdered them, raped them, and abused them, here on these trees.” That is what Israeli farmer Rami Davidian tells Sheryl Sandberg, as the pair onscreen examine a set of trees, and a camera flashes to a trunk with a rope knotted around it. The soft, piercing sound of a piano fills the loud silence in between Davidian’s harrowing recollections.

2 weeks ago | zeteo.com | Prem Thakker

The Trump administration has expanded the scope of its deportation assault on international students. What began as targeting students for their affiliation with anti-war and pro-Palestine protests has rapidly escalated to an effort to deport foreign students en masse – with no clear reason at all. Hundreds of international students across the country have either had their residency statuses unilaterally and without warning revoked in recent days or fear being next.

2 weeks ago | zeteo.com | Prem Thakker

At a Columbia University gala, students wearing keffiyehs were allegedly called terrorists, told to “go back to Gaza,” and grabbed, pushed, and had their keffiyehs snatched by other students.

3 weeks ago | zeteo.com | Prem Thakker

In a developing story, it appears the Trump administration is quietly targeting even more students for deportation and doing so in a way that is taking universities and the students themselves completely by surprise. According to documentation seen by Zeteo and interviews with university officials, the administration is deploying the rarely-used risk-to-foreign-policy immigration provision they used to detain Mahmoud Khalil to now target students across the country.