Trump Administration To Cancel Student Visas Of Pro-Palestinian Protesters: 'Will Find You, And Will Deport'
Date
1/29/2025 10:17:40 PM
(MENAFN- Live Mint) US President Donald trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.
A fact sheet on the order promises "immediate action" by the Justice Department to prosecute "terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews" and marshal all federal resources to combat what it called "the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets" since the Oct. 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 sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before," the president said, echoing a 2024 campaign promise.
Rights groups and legal scholars said the new measure would violate constitutional free speech rights and would likely draw 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 large Muslim advocacy group, said it would consider challenging the order in court if Trump tried to implement it.
The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled U.S. college campuses. Civil rights groups documented a surge in hate crimes and incidents directed at Jews, Muslims, Arabs and other people of Middle Eastern descent.
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