Trump’s order on antisemitism threatening to deport non-citizen activists divides Jewish groups
Jewish groups are offering mixed reactions to President Donald Trump’s latest executive order on antisemitism that suggests that foreign-born anti-Israel student protesters could be deported.
Some say the order is taking advantage of Jewish fear to erode civil liberties and stoke fears about immigrants.
Others, including some of the largest US organizations, say they welcome efforts to improve the climate on college campuses — as long as civil and immigrant rights protections are applied.
And a few say they are ready and eager to help — and have even started supplying the Trump administration with names of protesters to target.
In the order issued Wednesday, Trump directed government departments to take “actions to remove” students who are not citizens and who endorse terrorism. The order is framed as an update on Trump’s 2019 executive order on antisemitism and includes several other provisions. It would fulfill some of Trump’s campaign promises to combat antisemitism on college campuses.
It would also sharply escalate the methods the government uses to fight antisemitism on campuses and beyond. It would link that effort with Trump’s vast campaign to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, which a range of Jewish groups oppose. Some of his allies had been pushing for such a move for months before his election. Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state, had called for such visas to be revoked while still a senator, as had Rep. Elise Stefanik, now the president’s nominee for United Nations ambassador.
Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel “unleashed an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence against our citizens, especially in our schools and on our campuses,” the order says. “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.”
The order also gives federal agencies 60 days to issue recommendations for fighting antisemitism. It also asks government officials to inventory Title VI antisemitism complaints and lawsuits alleging antisemitic discrimination on campus.
As with many of the executive orders issued by Trump in the 10 days since he took office — more than any other president has signed in the same period — relatively little is clear about how his administration plans to implement its most dramatic components.
The executive order cites a law that deems a non-citizen “inadmissible” who, among other things, “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.”
The order comes amid widespread concern about the climate on college campuses. Pro-Palestinian protests last spring caused many Jewish and pro-Israel students to feel unsafe; disrupted classes and activities at times; and, in some cases, included physical violence against Jewish and pro-Israel students.
Amid the groundswell of campus activity were some documented cases of pro-Palestinian students or other protesters expressing open support for Hamas or calling for the deaths of Israelis and Zionists. It’s unclear how many of those protesters are not citizens.
It is also unclear how the Justice Department under Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi would determine whether a protester had expressed support for terrorism. Decisions about issuing or revoking of student visas would fall under the purview of the State Department.
One question is whether anyone who has ever been arrested while participating in a pro-Palestinian protest would be vulnerable. Many protesters who were arrested were later not charged or charged with misdemeanors.
Critics of the order have maintained that Republicans and many in the pro-Israel camp use too broad of a definition of supporting terrorism — particularly when it comes to pro-Palestinian activism — and that cracking down on pro-Palestinian speech would hurt American Jews in the long run.
“It is both possible and necessary to directly confront and address the crisis of antisemitism, on campus and across our communities, without abandoning the fundamental democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many others, to thrive here,” Amy Spitalnick, head of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said in a statement opposing Trump’s executive order.
Mainstream Jewish groups have so far broadly applauded Trump’s stated desire to fight antisemitism while expressing concern over the more controversial aspect of the order.
In a statement, the American Jewish Committee said it would “endorse without hesitation” Trump’s push to apply existing laws to addressing antisemitism. But the group was more circumspect about the deportation concept, stating, “It is vital that other provisions in the Executive Order which have the potential to be broadly interpreted to threaten certain ethnic and religious groups be implemented with strict adherence to existing law.”
The Anti-Defamation League, too, also broadly supported the goals of Trump’s order. But the group added a cautionary note, saying, “Obviously, any immigration-related ramifications must be consistent with due process and existing federal statutes and regulations and should not be used to target individuals for their constitutionally protected speech.”
Jewish Federations of North America told JTA late on Thursday that it supported the order, and downplayed its deportation aspects. “While much attention has been paid to the section of the order that seeks to revoke visas for students involved in supporting terrorist activity, the order does not—and indeed could not—add criteria for removing resident aliens beyond what is already written into current law,” a spokesperson wrote in an email, adding, “We thank President Trump for this important step.” (The ADL and JFNA had, as recently as December, declined to comment on Trump’s stated plans to deport protesters.)
Some Jewish groups are embracing the order without hesitation
Betar US, a reboot of a century-old militant Zionist youth movement, has launched an effort to track foreign-born college students who have engaged in protest activity. In part by using artificial intelligence, the group has compiled dossiers on the most active protesters to submit to the Trump administration for deportation.
The group’s executive director, Ross Glick, told JTA this week that he has received “countless” submissions since launching the campaign. A Betar spokesperson said the group was “very happy” about the new order and said the group has already submitted more than 100 names to Trump administration officials.
Glick maintains that those on the list are egregious offenders.
“These aren’t people being reported just for wearing a keffiyeh,” he said, referring to the scarf that is a symbol of Palestinian solidarity. “They’re being reported because they have been espousing anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, anti-American behavior, masking up in protests, participating in Intifada-led protests, and then are here as guests of our country, in some cases getting grants or funds.”
Glick added that he is supportive of free speech for American citizens, but that he doesn’t believe foreign students should have the right to go after the American government.
“Nobody’s looking to deport somebody who is legal. A citizen has rights, no doubt. Free speech,” he said. “But a foreign student, I don’t know of a country where you can, as a foreigner, participate in protests that are against the government.” (The Supreme Court has generally held that foreigners on American soil are entitled to at least some First Amendment protections.)
The question of deporting non-citizen pro-Palestinian students was already on the radar last spring. The Jewish president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was heavily criticized by some pro-Israel voices after she declined to suspend foreign-born protesters for fear their visas would be jeopardized.
Now, some Jewish groups want to see the executive order applied more widely, beyond the colleges and universities where the federal government has sway because of the funding it supplies.
Earlier this month, the Secure Community Network, which coordinates security for Jewish institutions, urged Trump to take “action against non-citizens who materially support terrorism and threaten Jewish Americans.”
The group’s director and CEO, Michael Masters, argued that existing law already permits the government to take such action when a student is found to have provided “material support” to a registered terror group like Hamas or ISIS.
“We cannot allow individuals to take advantage of America’s liberties to attack, threaten, and intimidate law abiding American citizens in the name of terrorism,” Masters wrote in an open letter. “The law forbids it. The time has come for the United States government to stand up for our citizens and our country – and to take meaningful action to protect the people of our country by enforcing those laws.”
Masters’ stance was opposed this week by rabbis and cantors via an open letter circulated by the progressive Jewish human rights network T’ruah.
“We do not deny that in select circumstances, immigrants have carried out and attempted terrorist attacks,” reads the letter signed by hundreds of rabbis across the country. “But to frontload them as the primary threat to Jewish security is not only morally irresponsible, but dangerous for the Jewish people and for American society.”
In addition to reflecting his anti-immigration views, the order dovetails with Trump’s stated intent to move aspects of addressing campus antisemitism from the Education Department to the Justice Department.
The deportation plan has roots in Project Esther, a policy proposal to combat antisemitism released by the right-wing Heritage Foundation during the campaign season. Prior to the election, many Jewish groups had declined to work with the Heritage Foundation on the initiative and criticized the program as an attempt to clamp down on left-wing political activism without meaningfully addressing antisemitism on the right.
But a small number of conservative-leaning Jewish groups, including the Zionist Organization of America, the Coalition for Jewish Values and the Combat Antisemitism Movement, endorsed Project Esther.
IfNotNow, a left-wing Jewish group that is harshly critical of Israel, also opposed Trump’s plan Wednesday, saying it was “fueled by anti-Palestinian racism” and in service to anti-democratic ideals.
“Empowering the far right endangers Jews,” IfNotNow spokesperson Eva Borgwardt said in a statement. “We call on fellow Jewish organizations and leaders who are committed to freedom of speech and safeguarding civil rights to vigorously oppose this dangerous executive order.”
This story has been updated with comment from Jewish Federations of North America.
Jesus Christ is King
