Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters endangers student visas

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests, a White House official said.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-Palestinian protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Donald 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 Israeli assault on Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled U.S. college campuses, with civil rights groups documenting rising antisemitic, anti-Arab and Islamophobic incidents.

The order will require agency and department leaders to provide the White House with recommendations within 60 days on all criminal and civil authorities and would demand “the removal of resident aliens who violate our laws.”

The fact sheet claimed that the protesters engaged in pro-Hamas protest, blocked Jewish students from attending classes and assaulted worshippers at synagogues, as well as vandalizing U.S. monuments and statues.

Many pro-Palestinian protesters denied supporting Hamas or engaging in antisemitic acts, and said they were demonstrating against Israel’s military assault on Gaza, where health authorities say more than 47,000 people have been killed.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a large Muslim advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of an assault on “free speech and Palestinian humanity under the guise of combating antisemitism,” and described Wednesday’s order as “dishonest, overbroad and unenforceable.”

During his 2024 election campaign, Trump promised to deport those he called “pro-Hamas” students in the United States on visas.

On his first day in office, he signed an executive order that rights groups say lays the groundwork for the reinstatement of a ban on travelers from predominantly Muslim or Arab countries, and offers wider authorities to use ideological exclusion to deny visa requests and remove individuals already in the country.