A doctoral student at the prestigious Cornell University in New York State, Momodou Tal, announced that he has chosen to voluntarily leave the United States. He faces deportation after US immigration authorities arbitrarily revoked his student visa due to his university activism in support of the Palestinian cause.

Momodou Tall, a British and Gambian citizen, had asked a federal court to halt his detention. But he posted on X late Monday that he did not believe a court ruling in his favor would guarantee his safety or ability to express his opinion.

“I have lost confidence in my ability to walk the streets without being kidnapped,” Momodou Tall wrote from an unknown location. “After considering these options, I have made the decision to leave on my own terms.”

The government says it revoked Tal's student visa last March because he participated in "disruptive protests, disregarded university policies, and created a hostile environment for Jewish students," charges that eyewitnesses say are trumped up.

The Trump administration has attempted to deport noncitizens from the country for participating in university protests deemed anti-Semitic, sympathetic to Hamas, or for expressing Palestinian slogans denouncing Israel's war of genocide. Students say the government is targeting them for their advocacy of Palestinian rights.

Tal, a 31-year-old doctoral student in Africana studies at an Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York, was suspended last fall after a group of pro-Palestinian activists disrupted a job fair on campus. He has been continuing his studies remotely this semester.

Tal filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, citing his right to free speech. The lawsuit was withdrawn on Monday.

In his post, Tal did not mention where he was writing from or where he intended to live next. He wrote, "Everything I have tried to do has been in the service of affirming the humanity of the Palestinian people, a struggle that will leave a lasting mark on me."

Since March 8, Internal Security agents have arrested dozens of students who participated in demonstrations against the Israeli war of extermination, at various universities. Perhaps the most prominent of these students was the Palestinian student at Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, an immigrant residing in the United States, who was arrested in front of his American wife and sent to a deportation camp in Louisiana. The Turkish student, Rumeysa Oztuk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, in Massachusetts, was arrested last Tuesday, March 25, and was forcibly taken to Louisiana, in preparation for deportation because of her participation in an article in the university newspaper, in which she expressed her support for the Palestinian boycott movement.