Left the cat to a friend and abandoned all the belongings in their flat - Ranjani Srinivasan had to book a last-minute flight and self-deported from the US to Canada. A 37-year-old who was pursuing a doctoral degree in urban planning at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) had recently discovered that their visa had been canceled for participating in pro-Palestine protests, and federal immigration agents arrived at their door.
Here’s all you need to know about the Chennai-based doctoral candidate of Columbia University.
Who is Ranjani Srinivasan?
According to the website of Columbia University, Srinivasan, who is referred to as “They/them” which are non-binary pronouns, had been pursuing their PhD in Urban Planning at Columbia University in New York on an F1 student visa. US officials have claimed that Ranjani had “supported Hamas”.
The US Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying that Srinivasan's visa was revoked on March 5 for "advocating violence and terrorism". The statement said, "Ranjani Srinivasan was involved in activities supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization. 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.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in a post on X, said, "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".
Srinivasan told The News Minute, “They’re making me out to be some sort of protest leader, which I’m not. I am just a PhD student who has too much work. Even if I wanted to go to a protest, I mostly don’t have time because I’m busy grading papers.” Ranjani had to leave behind ‘Cricket’, their pet cat, whom they had rescued four years ago. They posted a short clip of Srinivasan walking from LaGuardia Airport followed by a week of repeated visits from federal immigration agents.
The decorated academic:
Ranjani is a doctoral student in urban planning from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). As per the university's website, Srinivasan was doing research focussing on the evolving nature of land-labor relations in peri-urban statutory towns in India and received support from the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute for it.
Srinivasan earned a Bachelor's Degree from CEPT (Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology) University in Ahmedabad and a Master's Degree from Harvard with Fulbright Nehru and Inlaks Scholarships.
They have worked for an environmental advocacy nonprofit 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 that the Indian national is broadly interested in urbanization, the political economy of development, and historical geographies of capitalism and caste.
What happened?
As per their account, on March 6 morning, Ranjani read an email from the US Consulate in Chennai—sent the previous night—saying their visa had been revoked, with no further clarifications. They told The News Minute, “At first, I thought it was spam because it felt so unreal. I remember texting a screenshot, and inquiring with other international students if anybody else received a similar mail. When I realized it was real, I started frantically emailing the ISSO [International Students & Scholars Office] at Columbia asking why this had happened.”
But Ranjani’s confusion and alarm only began to escalate after that. They say that their participation in any pro-Palestine protests had only been “superficial” and that their engagement with the protests had been largely limited to social media posts.
While Ranjani had taken part in pro-Palestine protests in the past, they say they were not even in the US for most of April 2024—when a large number of pro-Palestine student protests took place across campuses.
As per Ranjani’s account, “I was doing fieldwork for my PhD back in India from August 2023 to April 22, 2024. From April 22 to April 27, I was in Boston with my family. I was in New York for a day, on April 27—for a conference—and then I went back to Boston.”
Ranjani shared with The News Minute that, on March 6 morning, they saw the email and eventually reached out to ISSO on campus. They told The News Minute, “I was scared of being out of compliance with the visa regulations. If I had to leave the country, I had to make arrangements immediately, but there was no reply.”
Ranjani made a swift decision to leave, saying, “The atmosphere seemed so volatile and dangerous,” as quoted by The New York Times.
They also added, “I’m fearful that even the most low-level political speech or just doing what we all do — like shout into the abyss that is social media — can turn into this dystopian nightmare where somebody is calling you a terrorist sympathizer and making you, literally, fear for your life and your safety.”