Indian Student “Self-Deports” from US after Visa Revoked for Participating in Pro-Palestine Protests
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 15: An Indian student studying at Columbia University in the US has self-deported herself from the country days after her student visa was revoked for participating in pro-Palestine protests.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, Ranjani Srinivasan’s visa was revoked on March 5 for “advocating violence and terrorism.” “Ranjani Srinivasan was involved in activities supporting Hamas, a terrorist organisation. On March 5, 2025, the Department of State revoked her visa. The Department of Homeland Security has obtained video footage of her using the Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency app to self-deport on March 11,” it said in a statement on Saturday.
Self-deporting, or leaving voluntarily before authorities take action, avoids the risk of one being put on a US military aircraft and sent home like the deportees who recently arrived in India. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a video of Srinivasan at the airport and said that anyone “advocating for violence and terrorism should not be in the country.”
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country. I am glad to see one of the Columbia University terrorist sympathizers use the CBP Home app to self-deport,” she said in a post on X. She also posted a short clip of Srinivasan walking at the airport.
The US Department of State confirmed that she self-deported on March 11, 2025, using the CBP Home App, and video footage of the process has been obtained. She was accused of supporting Hamas as a wave of pro-Palestinian protests swept the Columbia University and other US campuses last year during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Ranjani Srinivasan was a doctoral student in urban planning from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). According to the university’s website, Srinivasan was doing research focussing on the evolving nature of land-labour relations in peri-urban statutory towns in India and received support from the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute for it.
Srinivasan has a Bachelor’s Degree from Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University in Ahmedabad and a Master’s Degree from Harvard with Fulbright Nehru and Inlaks Scholarships. She had worked for an environmental advocacy non-profit in Washington on “frontier communities at risk from climate change” and as a researcher for the West Philadelphia Landscape Project (WPLP) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It also said the Indian national is broadly interested in urbanisation, the political economy of development, and historical geographies of capitalism and caste.
Columbia University has been the Ground Zero of student protests in support of Palestine amid the raging Israel-Hamas war. Last week, a former Columbia student of Palestinian descent Mahmoud Khalil who was at the forefront of the pro-Palestinian protests on campus last year, was arrested by the US authorities. While his green card has been revoked, a federal judge has put Mr Khalil’s deportation on hold temporarily.
Another Columbia University student, Leqaa Kordia, was arrested by an immigration official for overstaying her student visa. She was arrested last year for her involvement in pro-Palestine protests in New York. According to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Justice Department and Homeland Security are investigating whether Columbia was “harbouring and concealing illegal aliens on its campus.”
Ranjani Srinivasan was one of the first few to use the ‘CPB Home’ App for “self-deportation” within hours of its launch by the Trump administration on March 10. It was an overhaul of the CBP One App, to encourage migrants to “self-deport” rather than face possible arrest or detention.
The self-deportations are a unique element to US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Trump has vowed to deport record numbers of migrants in the US illegally, with about 37,660 people deported during the president’s first month in office, media reports said. However, the US also has an option for ‘voluntary departures’, which differ from ‘self-deportations’.
The US Customs and Border Protection app, called CBP Home, is a replacement for the CBP One app that was launched under former President Joe Biden, which earlier allowed immigrants to schedule an appointment to request entry at a legal border crossing.
After vehement criticism from Republicans, who said the app facilitated mass migration to the United States, Trump shut down CBP One hours after taking office. He revamped the app to ‘CBP Home’, which offered migrants to voluntarily ‘self-deport’ from the country rather than being deported formally.
This is part of a $200 million “Stay Out and Leave Now” ad campaign by the Trump administration, with warnings from Homeland Security that those living illegally in the US should depart voluntarily, otherwise they will be caught and permanently barred from returning.
Trump’s extensive mass deportation plan faces logistical and financial limits as he is appealing to Congress for more funding to deport illegal immigrants. The wave of deportations has slowed down since January, and this initiative is an effort to convince migrants to leave themselves rather than face arrest and detention.
“The CPB Home strengthens our mission to secure the border and provides illegal aliens with a straightforward way to leave now before facing much harsher consequences later,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt had said at a briefing. The app has a new feature that allows people to announce their “intent to depart” from the US. The app also asks users to confirm whether they have “enough money to depart the United States” and if they possess a “valid, unexpired passport from your original country of citizenship.”
The app also allows users to apply and pay for I-94 entry and exit cards up to seven days before travel, schedule inspections for perishable cargo, and check wait times at US border crossings.
In the case of a voluntary departure, an immigration judge decides whether or not any person can stay in the US or not, can give an order for voluntary departure, according to the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.
However, not everyone would be able to ask for voluntary departure. For example, any person who has committed an aggravated felony like murder, rape or sexual abuse of a minor can not avail voluntary departure and is likely to be deported. Those who tried unsuccessfully to enter the US before or who availed voluntary departure would also not be able to avail this.
A voluntary departure is a lengthy process encompassing a few hearings and a verdict, while self-deportations have been made easier through the app. Voluntary departure generally happens when an individual is detained by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and is facing removal, where they can choose to leave the country on their own accord. Self-deportations can happen anytime without any intervention from authorities.
A voluntary judge includes an immigration judge, while self-deportations are based on a person’s personal choice without any formal involvement. A person is given a limited time period to leave the US in the case of a voluntary departure, while in case of self-deportations that person can leave immediately.
In the case of self-deportations, the person may be able to avoid the humiliating process of a formal deportation and maintain control over the procedure without the hassles of any legal intervention. However, they still have a record of leaving the US and may be subject to longer re-entry bans and restrictions from applying for future immigration applications. In short, it does not offer the same legal protections.
Self-deportations are the best sought after measure if an individual wants to leave the US quickly, but voluntary departure provides of a more favourable immigration record.
