President Donald Trump has initiated a crackdown on anti-Semitism by ordering the deportation of foreign students who participated in pro-Hamas protests on college campuses. This move comes as part of a wide-ranging effort to address the issue.
The new executive order is aimed at resident aliens, including students holding visas, who were involved in illegal activities during protests following the October 7th attacks in Israel.
In his statement, Trump emphasized that he will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue cases related to terroristic threats, arson, vandalism, and violence against American Jews.
He added: ‘To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice…we will find you, and we will deport you.
‘I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.’
It was the latest in a slew of orders Trump has signed since becoming president as he looks to fulfill his campaign promises.
Many universities, particularly Columbia University in New York City, became the site of pro-Palestinian protests last year during the Israel-Hamas war
The students involved made radical demands that their schools sever financial ties to Israel and that the U.S. end its military support for its longtime ally.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday focused on combatting anti-Semitism
Trump’s latest order, first reported by the New York Post, gives leaders of government agencies and departments 60 days to provide the White House with recommendations on how to identify anti-Semitic threats.
It comes as Trump invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House next week as the first foreign leader to visit in his second term.
The U.S. is pushing Israel and Hamas to keep its ceasefire in place. Talks about the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which aims to end the war, begin next Monday.
Trump’s latest executive order, due to be signed on Wednesday, is his second focusing on anti-Semitism.
He signed another executive order last week calling for the removal of foreign visa holders who ‘advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.’
During a rally in New Jersey last May, Trump promised: ‘When I am president we will not allow our colleges to be taken over by violent radicals. And if you come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or anti-Semitism to our campuses we will immediately deport you.’
He also tackled the issue in his first term.
In 2019, Trump signed an executive order instructing federal officials to expand the interpretation of the Civil Rights Act to include ‘discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism.’
That added anti-Semitism to the list of prohibited behavior for programs that get federal funding.
During the college campus protests some Republicans wanted to use that order to take away federal funding from universities that defended the demonstrations as free speech.
Republicans denounced the protests during the 2024 election campaign as an example of liberal bias at elite universities.
Several House committees, led by Republicans, investigated federal funding to colleges and threatened to withhold research grants and other government support.
Ultimately, they issued a report calling for more to be done to address anti-Semitism.
Since the ceasefire announcement between Israel and Hamas, college protests have subsided.
Pro-Palestinian students occupy a central lawn on the Columbia University campus in April
Police arrest protesters during pro-Palestinian demonstrations at The City College Of New York in April 2024
State troopers arrest a man at a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas in April
The controversy over the protests led to a slew of university presidents – including Harvard’s – to resign.
At a high-profile Congressional hearing last year, many Ivy league presidents struggled to answer whether ‘calling for the genocide of Jews’ would violate each university’s code of conduct.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican who Trump nominated to be ambassador to the U.N., posed the question.
She later said it became the highest-viewed congressional hearing in history.
