Umar A Farooq
US 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 sentiments or participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally in front of the University of
Southern California campus, a day before commencement ceremonies, on 7
May 2024 in Los Angeles, California (Mario Tama/AFP)
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 war on 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, 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.
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 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 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 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 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.
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 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.
"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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