The President has signed another controversial executive order
Donald Trump has just signed another controversial executive order which would revoke student visas who are found protesting against Israel.
As the conflict between Israel and Palestine rages on, so does the President’s apparent crackdown on immigration and antisemitism.
Since Donald Trump‘s inauguration on Monday (January 20), executive orders and presidential pardons have been emerging from the White House under his orders.
Penn State University students in a pro-Palestine protest in October, 2024 (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The 78-year-old hasn’t hesitated in implementing his hardline anti-immigration agenda, having declared a ‘national emergency’ at the border, launched deportation flights, and looked at ways to remove US birthright from babies born in the States to non-registered US citizens or permanent residents.
He also signed the Laken Riley Act on Wednesday, which makes it easier for federal officers to detain and deport illegal immigrants – with sights set on opening a new detention center in Guantanamo Bay to send some 30,000 of them there who cannot be deported to their home countries.
Now, Trump is also threatening to ‘deport’ foreign pupils on a student visa if they are caught protesting against Israel.
According to Reuters, Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday (January 29) with a pledge to deport non-US citizens that are college students on visas who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.
As of January 2025, it has been reported that over 47,000 people – 45,936 Palestinians and 1,706 Israelis – have been killed in the conflict, as per the UN.
The president has signed the order in a bid to tackle antisemitism in the US (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Some civil rights groups have noted a surge in hate crimes against Jewish and Muslim people, as well as against people of Middle Eastern descent, since the incident.
Trump’s order instructs the Justice Department to take ‘immediate action’ in prosecuting ‘terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews’ and combat the ‘explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets’.
Echoing the infamous line taken out of Liam Neeson’s Taken movie, Trump said in the fact sheet: “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.”
He also said he would ‘quickly’ cancel student visas ‘of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses’, claiming universities have become ‘infested with radicalism like never before’.
The order also instructs the department to investigate graffiti that could be seen as pro-Hamas and any incidents of intimidation on college grounds.
However, human rights groups and legal experts say it comes into conflict with constitutional free speech rights in the country, and could be met with some legal challenges.
Pro-Palestine supporters marched through Columbia University campus on the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks (KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)
Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said: “The First Amendment protects everyone in the United States, including foreign citizens studying at American universities.
“Deporting non-citizens on the basis of their political speech would be unconstitutional.”
Meanwhile, a large Muslim support group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it would consider challenging the order in court if Trump attempts to implement it.
Department and agency leaders will be required to provide recommendations to the White House within 60 days over the proposal.
The notice also comes as Republicans have been threatening to punish colleges and pull billions of dollars of federal funding to those who are seen to be ‘allowing’ the protests, reports The Guardian.
