The repression of people who show support for Palestinian liberation has escalated. The Trump administration is using an antiquated immigration law and executive orders to target student activists, threatening them with deportation, and has gone so far as to kidnap students and professors. Clearing the FOG speaks with a Cornell University PhD student, Sriram Parasurama, who was suspended for participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations and is currently a plaintiff in a case challenging two of President Trump’s executive orders and with Chip Gibbons, a lawyer with Defending Rights and Dissent and the author of an upcoming book on the FBI, surveillance and the national security state. Both explain the urgency of fighting violations of our Constitutional rights and how to do that, as well as the implications of not taking action.
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Sriram Parasurama is a second-year PhD student in the graduate field of Horticulture, School of Integrative Plant Sciences currently on suspension for his pro-Palestine activism. He is a plaintiff in a case against the Trump administration with student Momodou Taal and Professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi with support from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). They are seeking an injunction against Trump’s Executive Orders Numbers 14161 and 14188, which authorize deportation over protected speech. Read his OpEd in the Cornell Sun here.
Chip Gibbons is the policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent. A journalist and researcher focusing on the US national security state, Chip is currently working on The Imperial Bureau, forthcoming from Verso Books. Based heavily on archival research and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, it tells the history of FBI political surveillance and explores the role of domestic surveillance in the making of the US national security state.