[News] Trump lays out blueprint to deport pro-Palestinian foreign nationals

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-lays-out-blueprint-deport-pro-palestinian-foreign-nationals>
Trump lays out blueprint to deport pro-Palestinian foreign nationals
By Umar A Farooq

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a new executive order that aims
to deport any international students on university campuses who have
expressed pro-Palestinian
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine> sentiments or
participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The order comes just a week after Trump instated a new travel ban that
vaguely seeks to deport individuals "espousing hateful ideology".

Together with last week's executive order, the new executive action against
students signals how the Trump administration is focusing its attention on
eliminating the pro-Palestinian movement on university campuses in the US,
which has grown exponentially in response to Israel's
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel> war on Gaza
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-war-gaza> that has killed
nearly 50,000 Palestinians since 7 October 2023.

"Taken together, these two executive orders essentially ban all
non-citizens, including green card holders, from criticising the US
government, its institutions, or the state of Israel on penalty of
deportation," Eric Lee, an immigration attorney who represents several
university students who have faced expulsion in cases related to Palestine
activism, told Middle East Eye.

"The latest order goes even further, attempting to transform universities
into a wing of the Department of Homeland Security by pressing them to
'monitor' what students say or write in class and what staff teach and
'report' them to authorities."

The executive order
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/additional-measures-to-combat-anti-semitism/>,
which is labelled as a measure to combat antisemitism, requires federal
agencies to provide guidance to universities on how to screen whether a
foreign national is ineligible to enter the country. The law cited in the
order says that any foreign national who "endorses or espouses terrorist
activity" is not allowed in the country.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/dozens-columbia-law-demand-inquiry-into-professor-termination>

Dozens of Columbia University law faculty demand inquiry into professor's
'termination'


The executive order calls on universities to surveil international students
and report them so the government can "remove such aliens".

"To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put
you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you," Trump
said, according to a statement
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-takes-forceful-and-unprecedented-steps-to-combat-anti-semitism/>
released by the White House.

"I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathisers on
college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never
before," he added.

While the administration may take months before it tries to deport
individuals - actions that will likely lead to legal challenges -
pro-Israel groups have already begun naming individuals for Trump to deport.

Last week, a Zionist organisation named Betar said it sent a list of names
of 100 pro-Palestinian students and 20 faculty that Trump should deport.

On that list
<https://nypost.com/2024/11/23/us-news/zionist-org-preps-list-of-foreign-pro-hamas-students-hoping-trump-will-deport-them/>
is Momodou Taal, a PhD candidate in African studies at Cornell University.
Taal has already been faced with the threat of de facto deportation for his
pro-Palestine activism and is no stranger to being targeted by pro-Israel
groups.

"Fundamentally, we can see that these executive orders are in response to
the pro-Palestinian advocacy," Taal told MEE.

"It's unsurprising because we've seen over the last year and a half that
these folks will stop at nothing to silence pro-Palestinian voices," Taal
said, referring to Zionist groups targeting students.

"Furthermore, it's also unsurprising because we have seen that these are
the same people who will unashamedly defend a genocide. So, getting someone
deported pales in comparison. If they can defend the morally indefensible,
then I think getting someone deported is very on brand," Taal added.
The darkest traditions of American history

Since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023, university campuses
across the US witnessed a surge in pro-Palestinian demonstrations that
called for an end to the war as well as an end to their respective schools'
investments in companies profiting off the war.

Several universities responded to those protests with police force, and in
one case
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ex-israeli-special-agent-says-he-went-undercover-ucla-student-encampment>
at the University of California-Los Angeles, a pro-Israel mob attacked
student demonstrators who had erected a Gaza solidarity encampment on
school grounds.

On multiple occasions, pro-Israel groups have accused pro-Palestinian
protests of being antisemitic. MEE investigated
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-facing-suspension-mit-university-students-continue-pro-palestine-advocacy>
these claims at a demonstration at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and found the claims equated pro-Palestinian slogans with
antisemitism, and the claims that Jewish students were barred from
attending class were false.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/massive-crackdown-free-speech-threatens-overwhelm-us-student-protests>

Renewed crackdown on free speech aims to overwhelm US student protests


Despite false claims, university administrations across the US have cracked
down on pro-Palestinian students and groups, with some chapters of the
student groups Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine
being banned in New York.

The Biden administration also condemned
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/biden-condemns-us-campus-protests-says-intifada-hate-speech>
these protests, labelling the word "intifada", often used at
pro-Palestinian rallies, as "hate speech". The intifada refers to two
different Palestinian uprisings against Israel's occupation and has been
characterised by mass protests, civil disobedience, as well as
well-organised strikes.

While Trump has vowed to take an even more forceful approach to the
pro-Palestinian movement and other social justice movements at US
universities, Lee noted that the Biden administration and university
authorities created the conditions for Trump to target these students.

"Trump is drawing on the darkest traditions of American history, including
the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Palmer Raid deportations of socialist
and anarchist opponents of World War One," said Lee.

"The path for these measures was prepared by university administrations and
the Biden administration, which spent the last 16 months systematically
suppressing pro-Palestinian and left-wing speech."
A chilling effect on campus

A new semester began at US universities earlier this month, and despite a
monthslong crackdown on the pro-Palestinian student movement, protests were
still held in places like Columbia University, an institution that quickly
became the epicentre of the student movement in the US.

However, it remains to be seen what impact the Trump administration and its
latest slew of executive orders will have on the protests.

Lee said that while Wednesday's executive order is targeting the
pro-Palestinian speech of international students, the aim of the Trump
administration is to "chill left-wing speech not only of non-citizens but
of their citizen coworkers and colleagues who have the right to hear and
debate the views of non-citizens".

"The latest order even paves the way for criminal prosecution of US
citizens who participate in pro-Palestinian protests," he said.

He stressed the need for all of civil society to come together in
opposition to the move.

'I would hope that folks in the US, taking our cue from the Palestinians,
will be a bit more fortified in their position, and will still be willing
to come and protest'

*- Momodou Taal, PhD candidate at Cornell University*

"It's urgent that civil society stand up to prevent Trump from transforming
the American university system into an enforcement wing of Trump’s
deportation machine," he said.

"Those who fail to stand up today because they disagree with the content of
student protestors' speech are only making it easier for Trump to silence
them tomorrow."

Civil rights groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and
anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace have condemned the
executive orders.

JVP noted that the executive action is taken from the Heritage Foundation's
“Project Esther” report, "which is a blueprint for using the federal
government and private institutions to dismantle the Palestine solidarity
movement and broader US civil society, under the guise of 'fighting
antisemitism'".

"This is a vile attempt to sow fear and crush political dissent to the
US-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as to further
the far-Right’s broader anti-immigrant agenda," JVP said in a statement.

Other free speech groups, like the Foundation for Individual Rights and
Expression, expressed concerns about the executive order, saying,
"revocation of student visas should not be used to punish and filter out
ideas disfavored by the federal government".

"The strength of our nation’s system of higher education derives from the
exchange of the widest range of views, even unpopular or dissenting ones,"
the organisation said.

Taal, who himself is currently barred from all but one building on
Cornell's campus for his pro-Palestine advocacy, said he has heard that
some international students are now scared to attend pro-Palestinian
protests on campus. But it remains to be seen whether the executive orders
will cripple the movement at large.

"It's intended to have a chilling effect of basically crushing the
movement. It is the state's way of crushing the movement and crushing any
dissent to a pro-Israeli position. The verdict is still out as to whether
it will have that intended effect," he said.

"I would hope that folks in the US, taking our cue from the Palestinians,
will be a bit more fortified in their position and will still be willing to
come and protest, but I think we have to wait and see."
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