Homeland Security said Thursday it had made an immigration arrest of a Harvard Law School professor who fired a BB gun outside a synagogue the day before Yom Kippur.
Carlos Portugal Gouvea has agreed to depart the country voluntarily rather than face formal deportation, the department said.
Mr. Gouvea, a Brazilian citizen here on an exchange visa, struck a plea bargain last month, agreeing to a charge of illegally discharging an air rifle in exchange for the dismissal of a felony and two other misdemeanor counts.
He told police he was hunting rats when he fired a BB gun outside of Temple Beth Zion.
The synagogue appeared to have accepted that explanation, with leaders saying they didn’t see antisemitism at work. But Homeland Security said it did.
“It is a privilege to work and study in the United States, not a right. There is no room in the United States for brazen, violent acts of antisemitism like this,” Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the department, said in a statement.
Homeland Security said the State Department had revoked Mr. Gouvea’s visa on Oct. 16.
Harvard listed him as a visiting professor at its law school this term. The school billed him as a leader on environmental and social justice in Brazil.
The incident comes amid other battles between the Trump administration and Harvard, and Homeland Security and foreign students.
The government is battling several high-profile court challenges to its effort to deport foreign students who played roles in high-profile pro-Palestinian protests over the last two years.
And the Trump administration is fighting a so-far losing battle to punish Harvard for failing to adopt the White House’s proposals for combating antisemitism and erasing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the private university.
