After Accidentally Eating Iftar Food, Penn Student Deemed “Muslim Enough” to be Deported by ICE

Immigration officials announced late last Wednesday that they had detained Bartholomew Xavier Paul White III (W ‘27) after he inadvertently ate an Iftar meal at English House Dining Hall (KCECH) after sundown. The news comes amidst reports of immigration raids at Columbia University, where students are allegedly being detained for involvement in pro-Palestinian protests, speaking Arabic in public, or otherwise looking vaguely ethnic. Witnesses say that as White entered KCECH, he asked a service worker “where all the American food was” before taking a bite of a lamb kofta. Upon doing so, twenty tactical-gear-equipped ICE officers deployed smoke grenades and rappelled down from the balcony above, tackling White and beating him senseless with batons.

Officials from ICE stated that the arrest was the latest in their efforts to “investigate individuals engaged in activities in support of Hummus, a foreign terrorist organization.” White, who graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and has never been outside the country with the exception of that one time he went to the Vatican City with his parents for a special papal blessing, was unreachable for comment. Through a family lawyer, however, his mother asked what the hell a kofta was, and stated that her son “would never consort… with ‘those people.’” In an emailed update to the Penn community, J. Larry Jameson explained that Penn “will always uphold its institutional values — including Zionism and transphobia,” asking President Donald Trump (W ‘68) if he could now pretty please return the $175 million in federal funding and that Penn would be good this time.

News of the arrest was met with wide condemnation across Penn’s campus. Brothers from White’s fraternity issued a press release denouncing ICE and other federal agencies, complaining that “[t]he United States… is becoming a third-world country. In no Western democracy should a white, English-speaking, American citizen be detained for engaging in constitutionally-protected behavior.” When reporters reached out to the Middle East Center for comment, it had already been shuttered due to funding cuts and replaced with a new Hillel center.

At press time, the East Hampton, NY native is being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana, where he will be processed before being put on a plane and being removed from the country. ICE officials report that White is “crying tears of joy” and is in “good spirits and ecstatic to reconnect with his people and ancestral homeland” as he is airdropped into Kabul, Afghanistan, with a small suitcase and an Arabic-to-English dictionary.