Community defends chemistry professor facing deportation from US

The academic research community and others are rallying around Syed Ahmed Jamal, a Bangladeshi chemistry professor who was arrested suddenly by immigration officials outside of his house on 24 January. Jamal has lived in the US for more than 30 years after he came on a student visa. Jamal is currently in the custody of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), pending deportation back to Bangladesh. A US-educated secular Muslim, Jamal could face serious danger in his home country as an ethnic minority. By 7 February, there were over 53,000 signatures on a petition to stop Jamal’s deportation, which described him as ‘a well-respected scientist and community leader’.