These are some of the many people legally in the US who have been detained by ICE or refused entry
A series of people – some of whom have never known life outside the United States – have been detained and deported amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration
Permanent residents in the U.S. have faced detention and deportation, while even tourists have been turned away under the new immigration regime taking shape under the Trump administration.
Immigration officials face accusations that they have targeted individuals because of their political opinions or because they have taken part in political activities, such as protests or demonstrations.
University of Minnesota graduate student detained
University of Minnesota graduate student Dogukan Gunaydin was arrested on March 27 at an off-campus residence, according to the school’s president.
“The university had no prior knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities before it occurred,” Rebecca Cunningham said.
Gunaydin, 28, is a Turkish national who was enrolled in the Carlson School of Management.
ICE officials said his visa was revoked due to a 2023 drunk driving infraction, not for being involved in protests.
Gunaydin’s attorney said during a hearing that Gunaydin was remorseful over the DWI and understood the seriousness of his arrest, even selling his car as a form of personal punishment so he wasn’t able to drive anymore.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in a post X, said he is in touch with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
University of Alabama doctoral student detained
Iranian citizen Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, was been detained by ICE on March 25. The university confirmed in a statement that the dentition occurred off campus, according to The New York Times.
While Doroudi was not named by the school, ICE records indicated that Doroudi was arrested by federal immigration authorities.
A DHS representative claimed Doroudi posed “significant national security concerns,” but did not elaborate. It remains unclear why he was targeted.
Doroudi, 32, studies mechanical engineering at the university, according to a LinkedIn page listed in his name. He specialized in metallurgical engineering, with a focus on metals for industrial use.
Tufts University doctoral student who co-authored op-ed supporting Palestine detained
Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student, was detained by ICE on March 25 near her home in Massachusetts.
Surveillance footage captured plainclothes federal agents approaching Öztürk, 30, from the street outside her off-campus apartment before putting her in handcuffs, even though there were no criminal charges against her.
A man, covering his head with a sweatshirt hood, appears to approach Öztürk without identifying himself and then grabs her arm. Another officer approaches and takes Öztürk’s phone while she is placed in handcuffs. Three officers had their faces covered with neck gaiters.
Öztürk is a PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the university, and is legally in the United States on a non-immigrant F-1 visa.
In an email to the Tufts community, university president Sunil Kumar said the school was told that federal authorities terminated her visa status, “and we seek to confirm whether that information is true.”
Georgetown University professor detained at home in Virginia
Georgetown University postdoctoral scholar and Professor Badar Khan Suri, originally from India, was detained on March 17 at his home in Arlington, Virginia. Masked agents said his J-1 visa had been revoked.
A spokesperson for DHS accused Suri of "spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media" as well as having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”
Suri is in the country on a J-1 visa – issued for people who take part in approved programs of teaching, studying, training and research.
On Thursday, a judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting him as his legal challenge against his arrest plays out.
Unnamed French scientist detained because of texts
A French researcher, whose name has not been made public, was reportedly stopped from entering the U.S. earlier in March because of text messages criticizing the Trump administration’s academic research policies.
The scientist was on his way to a conference close to Houston at the time, according to Le Monde.
A spokesperson for DHS denied the text messages were responsible for blocking the researcher, saying instead that the man was found to have “confidential” data from a U.S. lab. He did not elaborate.
The French minister of higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, said in a statement that "freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values that we will continue to proudly uphold. I will defend the right of all French researchers to be faithful to them while respecting the law.”
Baptiste took to X to say that he had asked for an emergency meeting with other European ministers to establish a plan to defend academic freedom.
"Europe must rise to the occasion to protect research and welcome the talents who can contribute to its success," he said.
Brown University doctor detained at Boston airport
Brown University Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen in the U.S. on an H-1B visa, was detained on March 14 and deported on March 16 after arriving back in the U.S. at an airport in Boston.
A DHS spokesperson said she had traveled to Beirut to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of Hezbollah.
Alawieh, who specializes in kidney medicine, was previously on a J-1 visa for “exchange students,” but Brown University subsequently sponsored her H-1B visa.
Officers “determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” according to a filing from Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sady.
Alawieh had been working at Rhode Island Hospital for the last year caring for kidney transplant recipients, the transplant division’s medical director Dr. George Bayliss told the Boston Globe. “I am outraged and upset,” Bayliss said. “The government is acting without regard for the courts.”
Milwaukee mother deported to a country she has never been to
Ma Yang, a 37-year-old Hmong American, was detained and then deported to Laos, a country she had never been to nor a country where she speaks the language.
Yang was stripped of her green card by the Trump administration in February, some two-plus years after being released from federal prison, where she served 30 months on marijuana-related charges.
Although she was born in Thailand, Yang had been living in the U.S. since she was a baby and was a legal resident with a green card.
ICE told Yang to report to the agency’s Milwaukee facility. When she showed up, agents detained Yang, sent her to Indiana, then Chicago, and finally she was shipped off to Laos. She says she doesn’t know anyone in the Southeast Asian country and can’t speak the language.
In a previous interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Yang said her attorney in the case never told her deportation was a possibility.
Defense attorney Matt Ricci, who represented Ma Yang in the 2020 marijuana case, disputed this on Monday, saying his files and notes showed otherwise. He said he told Yang at the time that deportation “could happen,” but that he didn’t think it “would happen.”
Welsh tourist detained after problem with visa
Rebecca Burke, 28, a Welsh artist, was detained on February 26 after she “set off on the trip of a lifetime across North America,” according to a GoFundMe page. She was reunited with her family this month after spending 19 days in a processing center after being denied entry at the border between the U.S. and Canada.
Burke had been residing with host families, with whom she helped out with chores in exchange for her stay. As she attempted to enter Canada, authorities informed her she needed a work visa, and she was told that she had to go back to the U.S.
"She was refused re-entry and classified as an 'illegal alien,'" her father wrote. "Despite being a tourist with no criminal record, she was handcuffed and taken to a detention facility in Tacoma, Washington."
Her father complained she had been led onto the plane in chains “like Hannibal Lecter.”
Mahmoud Khalil, former Columbia student and pro-Palestinian activist, detained
Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at Columbia University, was detained by federal agents on March 8 – despite being a lawful permanent resident – due to his involvement in last year’s protests and encampments in support of Palestine.
His wife, a U.S. citizen who was eight months pregnant at the time, said that he was seized by agents in front of her at their university-owned apartment.
Federal officials said they collected evidence that Khalil, 30, was actively, but not materially, supporting Hamas – a designated terrorist organization.
A DHS spokesperson said that Khalil was detained "in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism."
Officials concede that Khalil has not committed any crimes but are relying on a rarely used Cold War-era statute to justify his deportation. It gives Secretary of State Marco Rubio the power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Canadian detained while trying to get work visa
Canadian actor and entrepreneur Jasmine Mooney was detained at the border in San Diego on March 7 as she legally went through the process of trying to get a work visa.
She was detained for about two weeks, writing in The Guardian: "There was no explanation, no warning. One minute, I was in an immigration office talking to an officer about my work visa, which had been approved months before and allowed me, a Canadian, to work in the U.S.”
"The next, I was told to put my hands against the wall, and patted down like a criminal before being sent to an ICE detention center without the chance to talk to a lawyer,” she added.
She said she was held in a local prison for two days before being transported – in a jumpsuit and chains – to the detention center.
She had been applying for a TN visa, which allows professionals from Canada and Mexico to stay temporarily in the U.S. It was not clear why she was detained.
Germany updates travel advisories after several citizens detained
Lucas Sielaff, 25 spent two weeks in detention before being allowed to return to Germany. Because of a language barrier, he got an answer wrong regarding where he lived as he attempted to re-enter the U.S. from Mexico.
Germany updated its travel advisories for the U.S., noting its harsh immigration enforcement after several Germans were detained.
Jessica Brösche, 29, spent more than six weeks in detention, including eight days in solitary confinement, as she was traveling with tattoo equipment, with border officers believing that she was trying to work unlawfully in the U.S., according to The Guardian.
U.S. permanent resident Fabian Schmidt, 34, was detained on his way back from Luxembourg on March 7. The electrical engineer, originally from Germany, has held a U.S. green card since 2008 and renewed it last year, according to his mother, Astrid Senior, who also lives in the U.S. on a green card.
He was arrested at Boston Logan International Airport after returning from a short vacation visiting family in Germany. Senior claimed he was “interrogated” before being taken to Rhode Island’s Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls. She has not heard from her son since March 11.
An immigration hearing has been set for June. Officials have referenced drugs and DUI charges dating back to 2015.
U.S.-born citizen detained despite evidence
Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old citizen of the U.S. was held in a Florida jail at the request of federal immigration authorities, despite his mother presenting his birth certificate and Social Security information to a judge.
Lopez-Gomez was taken to Leon County Jail after a traffic stop accused of being undocumented.
The charge was dropped, but the Leon County judge said on Thursday that she did not have jurisdiction to release him after Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested that he remain in detention, according to court records. He was released hours later, though it is not clear what led to the change.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father with legal status, ‘mistakingly’ deported
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, was wrongfully deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador on March 15 in what Trump administration officials claimed was an “administrative error” – yet they refuse to bring him back.
Abrego Garcia immigrated illegally to the U.S. in 2011 but a judge granted him legal protection to stay in the U.S. in 2019 citing humanitarian reasons. That allowed him to work and live in the country while checking-in with ICE regularly. He lived in Maryland with his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and three children.
But federal immigration law enforcement officials claimed Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang and deported him without due process. Abrego Garcia’s family sued, disputing the allegation he was a gang member. In court filings, the Trump administration revealed he was deported in “an administrative error.”
Despite multiple federal judges, and the U.S. Supreme Court, ordering the administration to follow instructions to return Abrego Garcia, officials have refused and doubled-down on their accusation.
With reporting from Rhian Lubin, Kelly Rissman, Ariana Baio, Alex Woodward, Justin Rohrlich and Joe Sommerlad
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