KUALA LUMPUR – United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at combating antisemitism, which includes a pledge to deport non-citizen college students and others who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
According to Reuters, the Justice Department said will take “immediate action” to prosecute “terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews.”
A fact sheet on the order said that the department also commits to utilising all federal resources to address what it describes as “the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets” following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
“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 in the fact sheet.
“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, reiterating a campaign promise from 2024.
Rights groups and legal experts argue that the measure could violate constitutional free speech protections and is likely to face legal challenges.
“The First Amendment protects everyone in the United States, including foreign citizens studying at American universities,” said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “Deporting non-citizens on the basis of their political speech would be unconstitutional.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a major Muslim advocacy group, saod it would consider taking legal action against the order should Trump attempt to enforce it.
The Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent military response in Gaza sparked months of pro-Palestinian demonstrations across U.S. college campuses. Civil rights organisations have reported a rise in hate crimes and incidents targeting Jews, Muslims, Arabs, and individuals of Middle Eastern descent.
Under the executive order, agency and department heads are required to submit recommendations to the White House within 60 days on all criminal and civil authorities available to combat antisemitism. The directive also calls for an assessment of legal cases involving schools, colleges, and universities related to alleged civil rights violations stemming from pro-Palestinian protests. This could lead to measures to remove “alien students and staff” involved in such demonstrations.
Many pro-Palestinian activists have denied supporting Hamas or engaging in antisemitism, stating that their protests are directed at Israel’s military actions in Gaza, where health officials report more than 47,000 fatalities.
Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, a nonpartisan civil rights group, expressed concern over the apparent conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism. She warned that the order could have a chilling effect on free speech across the country, Reuters reported.
In 2020, the US revoked the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese students and researchers it said had ties to the Chinese military, accusing some of espionage, in the latest dispute between the rival superpowers.
It follows a proclamation in from Trump that “certain graduate level and above Chinese nationals associated with entities in China” that support or work with the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be blocked from entering the US. He said Chinese nationals studying in the US had stolen intellectual property and assisted the PLA. – January 30, 2025
