Early Tuesday morning US immigration police kidnapped a doctoral student studying at the University of Alabama from his home. As of this writing, 22-year-old Iranian citizen Alireza Doroudi is listed as detained on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website, but there is no record of where he is actually located.
Alabama student newspaper The Crimson White first reported that Doroudi was abducted from his home, located just off the Tuscaloosa campus, at around 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. The paper, citing a text message chain that included other Iranian students studying on the campus, reported that Doroudi first entered the United States in January 2023 on an F-1 student visa.
The message thread noted that Doroudi’s visa was revoked six months later, prompting Doroudi to immediately contact the “International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) at the University of Alabama. ISSS replied with confidence, stating that his case was not unusual or problematic and that he could remain in the U.S. legally as long as he maintained his student status.”
After being reassured by university officials that the apparent revocation of his visa would not be an issue, Doroudi continued his studies on campus. There has been no evidence provided by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that Doroudi was a leader, or even participated, in anti-genocide protests on campus, and he has not been accused of a crime. The only “crime” Doroudi is alleged to have committed is a minor traffic violation, according to The Crimson White, which reported that in November 2023 Doroudi was cited for speeding. He pled guilty and paid the $267 fine.
Despite not being accused of a crime, Doroudi’s whereabouts were unknown for nearly 24 hours.
On Thursday afternoon, The Crimson White, and other news outlets, confirmed that Doroudi is currently being incarcerated at the Pickens County Jail in Alabama. The jail is a common waypoint in the inhumane deportation journey, which typically leads to a detention facility in Louisiana, before the prisoner is forced onto a plane to some overseas destination.
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security refused to comment on Doroudi’s case until Thursday evening, at which point they sent a message to news outlets stating:
ICE HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) made this arrest in accordance with the State Department’s revocation of Doroudi’s student visa.
Without providing any supporting evidence, DHS stated, “This individual posed significant national security concerns.”
Doroudi is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of students and immigrants who have been disappeared or abducted by US immigration police in the first three months of the Trump administration.
The deliberate targeting of students, in many cases it appears with the help of the universities themselves, is aimed at subordinating all cultural and intellectual life to Trump’s fascist “Make America Great Again” agenda.
Legal resident and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil is currently facing deportation for speaking out against the genocide in Gaza. After being kidnapped on March 8, he remains incarcerated in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.
Cornell University PhD student Momodou Taal is currently being hounded by the Trump administration for deportation for filing a lawsuit earlier this month challenging two executive orders issued by Trump aimed at suppressing speech critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinian equality.
On Thursday, protests were held for the second straight day in Somerville, Massachusetts, in response to the kidnapping of Tufts University Ph.D student Rumeysa Ozturk on Tuesday evening. Ozturk has committed no crime and apparently was targeted soley because she co-authored an op-ed in support of resolutions passed by the student body in opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
As of this writing, police in Somerville are currently blocking hundreds of protesters from entering the City Hall, where the council is currently debating whether to include a ballot measure on the question of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) on Israel on the November ballot.
Video of the thuggish and masked agents surrounding and disappearing Ozturk into an unmarked vehicle Tuesday evening as she was walking to a friend’s house for dinner has prompted mass outrage throughout the country and internationally.
Questioned at a press conference Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gleefully took credit for Ozturk’s detention and possible deportation.
“Oh, we revoked her visa. It’s an F-1 visa, I believe. We revoked it…” Rubio claimed that Ozturk’s visa was not revoked “because you want to write op-eds” but because “you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa.
“We gave you a visa to study and get a degree, not to become a social activist,” Rubio added, without providing any evidence that Ozturk participated in any of those activities.
At the same press conference Rubio said that he had revoked hundreds of student visas.
Maybe more, it might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.
Asked again to confirm if it was more than 300, Rubio said:
Sure, I mean, at some point I hope we run out because we have gotten rid of all of them. We are looking everyday for these lunatics that tear things up.
That Rubio is even in a position to gloat about disappearing students is entirely the fault of the Democratic Party. Less than three months ago, every single Democrat, including the nominally “independent” senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, voted to approve Rubio as secretary of state.
One of Rubio’s so-called “lunatics” facing deportation is an accomplished and hardworking scientist from Russia who fled to America after the invasion of Ukraine due to fear that her outspoken opposition to the war would land her in the crosshairs of the Putin government.
On Thursday, multiple outlets reported about Kseniaa Petrova, a computer scientist who arrived in the United States via Georgia in the spring of 2023. According to her friend and co-worker, Cora Anderson, Petrova began working at the Harvard Medical School upon her arrival. In a Facebook post, Anderson described her friend as not only kind “but incredibly intelligent and diligent.”
Anderson said Petrova was returning from a trip from France on February 16, 2025 when she was detained at the Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. After not being able to locate her friend for nearly 72 hours, Anderson found out that Petrova’s visa had been revoked and that she would be deported to Russia. After Petrova told ICE agents she feared persecution if she were to be returned to Russia, she was transferred to an ICE detention facility, where she has remained imprisoned for over a month.
The Insider, a Russia-based outlet, reported that Petrova is currently being held in an ICE facility shared “with 80 other women.” The outlet, citing a report from Russian news outlet Agentstvo, noted that Petrova’s visa may have been revoked because of frog embryos that were in her possession but not properly declared on customs forms, normally a $500 fine.
It is unclear if Petrova will be allowed to stay in the US, deported or remain imprisoned in an ICE hellhole. Conditions inside the overwhelmingly for-profit facilities, like the rest of the American prison gulag, are notoriously awful.
In the last week, several videos have been posted on Tik Tok showing the tremendously overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at the Krome Detention Center facility in Miami, Florida. Video shows humans packed into concrete cells without any space.
At the El Paso Service Processing Center in Texas, at least eight Venezuelan immigrants have alleged that guards at the facility beat them on February 25. In a video recording featuring the victims, first reported by Rolling Stone and Capital & Main, the detained men detailed the abuse they suffered.
At the start of the video a bruised Jesús Quintero explained, “In this institution, as is evident by showing my face and in the majority of our bodies, today was another day of mistreatment by the officials of this center, of which we are tired and ask for help and justice.”
After Quintero spoke, another man in an orange jumpsuit stated the guards “had me up against the floor and assaulted me.” Following him another man with two black eyes declared, “I was also assaulted today by officers.”