In a powerful statement released Monday evening, Momodou Taal, a British-Gambian Ph.D. student in Africana studies at Cornell University, announced on social media that he was leaving the United States to escape political persecution by the Trump administration.

Taal thanked all individuals and organizations that have supported his case, particularly his legal team. He wrote:

Everything I have tried to do has been in service of affirming the humanity of the Palestinian people, a struggle that will leave a lasting mark on me.

Today I took the decision to leave the United States, free and with my head held high.

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Taal, like hundreds of other international students, has been targeted by the government because of his outspoken opposition to the US-backed Israeli genocide. The Trump administration is also seeking to retaliate against him for filing a lawsuit last month, alongside Cornell Professor Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ and fellow graduate student Sriram Parasurama, challenging two executive orders issued by Trump that suppress free speech and, in particular, criticism of Israel.

After Taal filed the lawsuit, the Trump administration vindictively revoked his student visa and began sending deportation thugs to harass and intimidate him. Taal’s lawyers sought a temporary restraining order to keep the Trump administration from disappearing him to a detention camp in the US, El Salvador or Guantanamo Bay, but the initial request was denied last week by US District Judge Elizabeth C. Coombe.

That same day his attorneys, led by Eric Lee and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, filed an amended complaint and new emergency motion.

As Taal explained in his statement:

Trump did not want me to have my day in court and sent ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents to my home and revoked my visa. We held out but our first motion was denied. We were due to submit a second briefing with the hope that I could stay out of detention whilst the lawsuit progressed.

Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favourable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs. I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted. Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.

He continued:

This is of course not the outcome I had wanted going into this, but we are facing a government that has no respect for the judiciary or for the rule of the law.

Taal placed his persecution within the context of the broader campaign, which is backed by the entire political establishment, aimed at suppressing opposition to the ongoing genocide.

For every person that has remained silent, just know that you are not safe either. Is the imprisonment of those who speak out against a genocide a reflection of your values? Is this the kind of nation you want to live in? We are already seeing the Trump administration exploiting the complicity of those who have remained silent on the Zionist genocide of Palestinians. The repression of Palestinian solidarity is now being used to wage a wholesale attack on any form of expression that challenges oppressive and exploitative relations in the US.

In scathing terms, he denounced the political and media establishment for turning reality upside down:

It is surreal that we live in a world where you get into trouble for saying killing babies is wrong. Where those advocating for, and celebrating, endless massacres against Palestinians are able to, time and again, present themselves as victims while presenting those fighting against genocide as oppressors.

He added:

If you have been led to think that your safety is only guaranteed by state kidnap, repression, deportation, the slaughter of children, and the suppression of the global majority, then let Gaza’s shards of glass be your mirror.

Taal warned, “History will remember, and we are never going back.” He noted that while his “future remains uncertain and this now means drastic changes in my personal life, I remain unwavering in my commitment to a liberated Palestine; from the river to the sea.”

Taal’s case is part of a sweeping campaign of political repression being carried out by the Trump administration. Under the so-called “Catch and Revoke” program, hundreds of international students have had their visas revoked for participating in or even expressing support for protests against the US-backed genocide in Gaza. These actions are backed by AI-driven surveillance targeting political speech on social media.

Dozens of students have already been seized and sent to ICE detention centers, including Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and lawful permanent resident; Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. candidate and Fulbright scholar abducted on the streets of Boston by masked agents; and Yunseo Chung, a South Korean permanent resident who has lived in the US since childhood.

On Thursday, the World Socialist Web Site hosted an emergency online meeting featuring Taal, his attorney Eric Lee, WSWS Editorial Board Chairman David North and Socialist Equality Party National Secretary Joseph Kishore.

The speakers warned that the persecution of pro-Palestinian students is part of a broader drive to establish a presidential dictatorship, denounced the complicity of the Democratic Party, and called for the development of a working class movement to oppose the capitalist oligarchy that is waging a war on democratic rights.