US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday to combat antisemitism and pledge to deport non-citizen college students and other resident aliens who took part in pro-Palestinian protests, a White House official said.
A fact sheet on the order said Trump would order the Justice Department to “aggressively prosecute terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews.”
“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 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 order would reportedly also see the Justice Department investigate activists who graffitied pro-Hamas messaging – including on private college campuses.
The reported order comes amid a wave of antisemitism that followed Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel. Since the massacre and the resulting war, US campuses have seen a significant uptick in pro-Palestinian activism, antisemitic hate crimes, and, in some cases, open terror support.
Columbia University is reportedly the main focus of the legislation, following numerous instances of antisemitic and anti-Israel activity on its campus.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Homeland Security blocked efforts to discover the visa status of the protesting students, a House GOP report alleged.
The reported order comes amid Trump’s deportation push
Trump, a Republican, issued an array of executive orders to crack down on illegal immigration after taking office on Monday, including actions aimed at deporting record numbers of migrants in the US without legal status. Trump said the actions are needed after millions of migrants entered during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, while critics say Trump could hurt businesses and separate families.
In a little more than a week in office, Trump rolled back Biden-era guidance that limited arrests of non-criminals, ordered other federal law enforcement to assist with immigration work, and scrapped a Biden policy that restricted enforcement at schools, churches, hospitals, and other sensitive locations.
“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said in his January 20 inaugural address, calling illegal immigration an “invasion” and declaring a national emergency.
The Trump administration stepped up immigration arrests in recent days with about 1,000-1,200 arrests per day, according to ICE, far above the daily average of 311 in fiscal year 2024. The nationwide operations included arrests in Chicago on Sunday, during which a TV personality known as “Dr. Phil” was documented with a film crew.
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