Mar
27
Date
3:00 PM EDT
Location
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The World Socialist Web Site will host an online public meeting this Thursday featuring Cornell PhD student Momodou Taal, his attorney Eric Lee, WSWS International Editorial Board chairman David North, and Socialist Equality Party (US) national secretary Joseph Kishore. This critical discussion will focus on the fight to defend democratic rights in the face of the Trump administration’s rapid moves to establish a presidential dictatorship.
The case of Momodou Taal has emerged as a watershed in the escalating attacks on democratic rights. Taal, a British-Gambian graduate student at Cornell University, is the lead plaintiff in the first major legal challenge to Trump’s executive orders targeting political opposition. Just days after filing the lawsuit, Taal was targeted for retaliatory deportation due to his opposition to the genocide in Gaza. Federal agents attempted to detain him, and the government has now formally demanded that he surrender to ICE custody.
The government openly admits that Taal was identified as part of its implementation of Trump’s Executive Order 14188, which directs federal agencies to use immigration powers to target critics of Israel under the guise of combating “antisemitism.” If successful, the deportation of Taal would set a chilling precedent: that the president of the United States can imprison and expel individuals in retaliation for filing a lawsuit and engaging in protected political speech. His case is a test of whether democratic rights still exist in the US.
Taal’s persecution is part of a broader campaign. The Trump administration has invoked the reactionary Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out mass deportations, arrested Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, and openly defied court rulings. The aim is to crush dissent, criminalize opposition to US and Israeli war crimes, and intimidate a population that is increasingly hostile to the oligarchy’s agenda of war, repression, and austerity.
We urge all WSWS readers—students, workers, and youth—to attend this urgent online meeting. The defense of democratic rights cannot be left to the courts or the Democratic Party, which has paved the way for Trump’s repressive policies. The working class must be mobilized as an independent political force to stop the drive toward dictatorship and the criminalization of opposition.
David North is the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party and chairman of the World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board. He has been active in socialist politics for over 50 years.
Momodou Taal is a British-Gambian PhD student in government at Cornell University and lead plaintiff in the first major legal challenge to Trump’s executive orders targeting student protesters and critics of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Eric Lee is a civil rights attorney specializing in immigration and constitutional law. In addition to representing Taal, he recently argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark immigrant rights case Department of State v. Muñoz.
Joseph Kishore has been the national secretary of the SEP since 2008 and has played a central role in the development of its political program and the building of the SEP. He ran recently as the SEP’s presidential candidate in the 2024 US elections.
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The Trump administration is seeking to detain and deport Taal in response to a lawsuit filed by Taal against Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders.
The case has been brought by Cornell University student Momodou Taal and two co-plaintiffs. Taal is being targeted for deportation by the Trump administration in retaliation for filing the suit.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality condemns the craven capitulation by Columbia University to the demands of the Trump administration to impose a regime of censorship on the campus.
As the Trump administration doubles down on its plans to ethnically cleanse and annex the Gaza Strip, the US has launched a new military offensive targeting Yemen and ultimately Iran as part of a systematic escalation of the US-Israeli war to reshape the Middle East under US domination.