Columbia University student ran from Homeland Security, but still doesn’t know why they came for her

When it seemed government officers wouldn’t stop pursuing her, Ranjani Srinivasan fled. But this Columbia University student still doesn’t know why she was targeted.

Ranjani Srinivasan was busy talking to an adviser at Columbia University when the federal agents first came to her door. The day before she’d got an unexpected email that her student visa had been canceled, and she was trying to get information. “It was my roommate who heard the knock and immediately recognized (it as) law enforcement,” Srinivasan told CNN. “She asked them ‘Do you have a warrant?’ And they had to say ‘No.’” “I was stunned and scared,” she said. “I remember telling the adviser ‘ICE is at my door and you’re telling me I’m fine? Do something.’” They returned another day, also without a warrant, Srinivasan said. Matters escalated when they came a third time, with a judge’s permission to enter the Columbia apartment. By then she had already left the country. The biggest question for Srinivasan is why they came at all. Srinivasan had renewed her student visa just a few months earlier, being granted permission for another five years in the United States — more than enough time to complete her PhD in urban planning. She was no stranger to immigration rules, having won a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard University for her master’s degree and then returning to her native India for the requisite two years after.