Trump signs ‘antisemitism order’ that opens door to pro-Palestinian student deportations

NEW YORK, N.Y. – April 30, 2024: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally outside the Morningside Campus of Columbia University in Manhattan. Editorial credit: Ben Von Klemperer / Shutterstock.com

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that opens the door to the deportation of pro-Palestinian student demonstrators.

Pro Palestine organisations have called the order an attack on freedom of speech and peaceful demonstrations in the service of Israel.

Trump said that in the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, “Jewish students have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination; denial of access to campus common areas and facilities, including libraries and classrooms; and intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault.”

Though Trump did not mention demonstrators or protests directly in his order, he was likely referring to the wave of anti-war demonstrations that erupted on college campuses amid Israel’s indiscriminate war on the besieged Gaza Strip, which has killed over 47,000 people and led to the widespread destruction of the coastal enclave, mass displacement and acute shortages of badly-needed goods.

The overwhelmingly peaceful protests, which took a wide variety of forms to include sit-ins, rallies and hunger strikes, have largely abated as college campuses instituted new rules that ramped up penalties on demonstrators, including on those who protested without official authorisation.

WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES – JANUARY 30: United States President Donald Trump makes a press statement at the White House in Washington DC., United States on January 30, 2025. ( Celal Güneş – Anadolu Agency )

Trump said it would now be the policy of the U.S. government to “combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”

He is specifically directing the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Homeland Security to monitor the activities of “alien students and staff,” referring to a section in U.S. law which specifies that foreign nationals can be denied U.S. entry on security grounds.

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, called the executive order a “dishonest, overbroad and unenforceable” attempt to smear college students who protested against the Israeli government’s genocidal war on Gaza in overwhelmingly peaceful ways.

In a statement, CAIR said: “Free speech is a cornerstone of our Constitution that no president can wipe away with an executive order. Like the college students who once protested segregation, the Vietnam war, and apartheid South Africa, the diverse collection of college students who protested against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza deserve our country’s thanks.

“The Trump administration’s attempt to smear the many Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian and other college students who protested the Israeli government’s genocide in overwhelmingly peaceful ways represents a dishonest, overbroad and unenforceable attack on both free speech and the humanity of Palestinians, all for the sake of a foreign government. So is the administration’s apparent threat to deport any foreign student who merely participated in anti-genocide protests.

“It is also important to note that the order completely ignores real and documented incidents of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim violence against American college students by pro-Israel extremists, potentially including some Israeli soldiers here on student visas.”

“It’s time for President Trump to pursue an America First agenda, not an Israel First agenda.”

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