Update, January 31, 2025, 12:30 p.m.: This article has been updated to reflect a comment from the ACLU.
President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday instructing federal agencies to identify and investigate non-citizen college students and staff involved with pro-Palestinian protests since 2023.
“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 wrote in an accompanying 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, titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” gives federal agencies 60 days to submit reports “identifying all civil and criminal authorities or actions” within their jurisdiction “that might be used to curb or combat anti-Semitism,” along with inventories of pending antisemitism complaints “against or involving institutions of higher education.”
The order will “marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of anti-Semitism on our campuses and in our streets,” per the fact sheet.
University of Chicago Law School constitutional law professor Genevieve Lakier told the Maroon that “this is signaling a willingness [by the Trump Administration] to use these legal instruments to deport or prosecute students for protesting, but I think for now, [the executive order] does very little…. Most of this is bluster meant to intimidate and sow terror and anxiety.”
“The president could just tell the attorney general [to do inventories]. The president is doing this by executive order as a political move,” Lakier said. “As far as we can tell, there is no requirement for universities to do anything. It is suggestion piled upon suggestion.”
The order also instructs the Secretary of State, Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security to provide recommendations for “familiarizing institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3),” which states that any immigrant who has “engaged in a terrorist activity” or is a representative of “a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity” is inadmissible to the United States.
“I think it would be hard to show that a student is a member of a terrorist organization,” Lakier said, though she noted that 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) could be applied to students who are members of groups that publicly support or express “terrorist beliefs.”
“If you’re a member of [Students for Justice in Palestine], then that could be deemed support of Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization,” Lakier said.
Students for Justice in Palestine at UChicago, which is a coalition member of UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP), declined to comment on this story.
The Department of State, Department of Education, and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
The action expands on Trump’s Executive Order 13899, issued in 2019, which enforced Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against antisemitic discrimination.
Title VI “prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance,” which include most private colleges and universities.
The Wednesday executive order further states, “The Attorney General is encouraged to employ appropriate civil-rights enforcement authorities, such as 18 U.S.C. 241, to combat anti-Semitism.”
18 U.S.C. 241 concerns conspiracy by two or more persons to infringe on civil rights, possibly referring to the order’s claim that since October 7, 2023, Jewish students have faced “denial of access to campus common areas and facilities.”
“I don’t think temporarily barring someone from using a pathway could be deemed conspiracy against civil rights,” Lakier said, referring to 18 U.S.C. 241 and pro-Palestine encampments in the spring of 2024.
In a statement released Thursday, Palestine Legal director Dima Khalidi called the order “the latest in a growing list of dangerous, authoritarian measures aimed at enforcing an ideological strangulation on schools by attempting to scare students into silence about Israel’s genocide in Gaza with threats of prosecution and deportation.” Palestine Legal, a project of the nonprofit Tides Center, is a legal organization that supports causes related to the movement for Palestinian rights, including UCUP.
“Targeting Palestine rights activists for punishment violates the First Amendment,” Khalidi wrote. “The implications of this executive order go far beyond the Palestine movement. It encourages government agencies to find ways to target any dissent from Trump’s agenda, and aims to enlist universities themselves as its censors and snitches.”
Ben Wizner, interim director of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Center for Democracy, told the Maroon in a statement, “The president should not be in the business of policing speech on college campuses. The administration has many tools at its disposal to combat rising antisemitism that don’t involve targeting people who participate in this country’s political debates.… Trump’s order and accompanying fact sheet are intended to silence viewpoints the president disagrees with and will have a serious chilling effect across the country.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a press release on Wednesday that the organization is “eager to see every federal agency and department take concrete measures to address this scourge [of antisemitism].”
Rabbi Yossi Brackman of UChicago Rohr Chabad declined to comment on the executive order but wrote in an email to the Maroon, “The shocking rise of incidents of hate against Jews and Jewish institutions in the USA, including on campuses should be of grave concern to any intelligent person who values this country, freedom, and liberal values.”
Brackman added, “I do not see hatred of Jews as an ongoing issue at UChicago, even though there have been incidents.… I have seen the university leadership respond to issues related to Jew hatred with the seriousness required.”
Speaking in a personal capacity, Maroons for Israel President Joachim Sciamma told the Maroon that antisemitism on campus is “not a question of speculation. There are students at this school who every day come up to me and tell me that they are being harassed, they are being stalked, they are being spat on.”
When asked about Trump’s threat to deport international students involved in pro-Palestine protests, Sciamma said, “I think the United States government has the right to enforce the laws and the legislation that it passes in a way that’s consistent with the First Amendment and the Constitution of the United States.”
A Jewish student, who spoke to the Maroon on condition of anonymity, said: “Trump is co-opting Jewish identity for general anti-immigration politics that he pushes heavily. And I think to have the collective Jewish identity used in such a manner can be dangerous for Jews in the long term. I think it puts us in a place where we’re expected to have loyalty in a certain capacity.”
UChicago Hillel Rabbi and Executive Director Anna Levin Rosen did not respond to a request for comment.
The Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish League, and the Combat Antisemitism Movement all published statements pledging their support for Trump’s executive order.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Bend the Arc, Nexus, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression all released statements opposing the order.
The University did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
The White House Office of Communications did not respond to repeated requests for comment by email and has not been accessible by phone since early Wednesday.
Zachary Leiter, Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon, and Elena Eisenstadt contributed reporting.
David Rosenberg / Feb 2, 2025 at 5:12 pm
To pretend that Trump’s executive order targets “pro-Palestinian” protesters en masse and not just those who have committed crimes against people and property or who otherwise have shown support for designated terrorist organizations belies the moral vacuity of the entire movement. If you can’t police yourselves, don’t come crying when you are policed by others.
Grad student / Jan 31, 2025 at 12:06 pm
Starting in high school, I participated obsessively in Amnesty’s letter writing campaigns on behalf of prisoners of conscience in Iran and Saudi Arabia, protests against US occupation and war crimes in Iraq and really more causes than I can remember. It would be hubris to claim that any of that did anything, but the point is this: it wasn’t until I joined protests over the US and Israel’s campaign of genocidal revenge against the civilian population of Gaza that I encountered the claim that unless I’ve already spoken out on every other issue on Earth, to say something about this one makes me a hateful person who should be expelled from this university and this country. This is what Palestinians are up against in their fight to count as human beings.
Indeed, to think of Palestinians as fellow human beings — with the right to self-defense of the “don’t tread on me” sort Americans love to reserve for themselves — belongs to the “universe of the undiscussed” in mainstream American culture, to use Bourdieu’s term. Alivisatos and his fellow UChicago admins have reproduced this culture: uncritically, yet carefully dressed up in language that looks respectable. This administration is actually a hotbed for the Palestinian Lives Don’t Matter political movement. This movement will be defeated.
Joe / Feb 1, 2025 at 7:13 pm
The issue of the Palestinians, will not be solved by the USA, Israel, or anyone else, it boils down to one thing: the leadership of the Palestinian people.
If they wanted peace, or if they wanted a state, they would have had it a long time ago. What they actually want is the destruction of Israel and that’s not happening.
If you have not read the Hamas charter, I highly recommend reading it. (Maybe not before bed.) You will then understand why there is no peace for the Palestinians.
My question to all the bleeding heart liberals, why DO you care about the Palestinians above all other issues on the planet? Might it be, perhaps, because the other side of the equation are Israelis, aka Jews?