A graduate student at the University of Minnesota was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week. A senior Department of Homeland Security source said that the student was detained because of a previous drunk driving incident, not because they were involved in campus protests.
The official said in a Monday statement, “This has nothing to do with the student protests.” “The person in question was arrested after the State Department took away their visa because they had a history of DUI offenses.”
University of Minnesota wrote to the school community to say that the person was a “international student” who was arrested last Thursday at a home off-campus.
The student, whose name has not been given, goes to school at the Twin Cities site. CNN tried to get in touch with the student’s lawyer on Monday after DHS’s statement about why the student was arrested but did not hear back right away.
But in a previous interview with CNN, the lawyer said that the case was “highly sensitive” and that they wanted to protect the privacy of their client.
If a foreign student is detained because they had a DUI conviction in the past, it seems like immigration officials are taking a different approach. So far, they only seem to be interested in students who have been involved in protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
As part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, several foreigners with ties to well-known American colleges have been arrested in the past few weeks. A lot of students and scholars have been arrested and are facing deportation procedures. This has shocked the academic community and made people worry about the protection of free speech.
The letter to the school community, signed by the president and other school leaders, said that the university did not know about the student’s detention ahead of time and did not share any information with federal authorities before it happened.
“It’s important to remember that our campus public safety departments, like UMPD, do not enforce federal immigration laws, and our officers do not ask people about their immigration status,” the statement said.
