During President Donald Trump’s time in office he has issued multiple executive orders that are generally unconstitutional and are obviously targeting specific groups of people. One of these many executive orders was issued January 29, 2025, and it directly targets pro-Palestine university students and their freedom of speech with threats of deportation and prosecution. It goes without saying that people did not take it too kindly that President Donald Trump would attack student’s first amendment rights. There have also been people who have been thankful for this executive order.
Defending Rights & Dissent
This executive order for now is mainly targeting universities and their pro-Palestine students, it claims that these student protests are “terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews.” “Many campuses do not have a clearly stated definition of what crosses the line into antisemitism, and many student protesters have complained that their anti-Israel demonstrations have been unfairly conflated with antisemitism” as reported by journalist Tovia Smith of NPR News.
In reality, though, this is just a follow-up to one of the things that President Donald Trump said during his 2024 election, as stated by Radhika Sainath, the Senior Staff Attorney at Palestine Legal. “During his 2024 election campaign, Trump made it clear he would threaten to pull billions in federal funding from universities for allowing pro-Palestine protests.”
I asked some students at BASE if they had heard anything about this executive order, and if this would affect their attendance at any pro-Palestine protest. Kyron Robinson, an 11th-grade student of BASE, stated that he had no idea about this executive order, and when asked if this would affect his attendance at any pro-Palestine protest he said no. Another student of BASE, Kristofer Espeleta, 11th grade, when asked the same questions said he also said that he had not heard about this executive order and that he would not join in any pro-Palestine protest, in his words, “I don’t want to get arrested.”
Anonymous Source
This is just another weaponization of antisemitism made by a politician so that groups of people, who don’t know any better, support their actions. This statement is supported thanks to an anonymous source who states, “I think that there is a massive contingent of anti-zionist Jewish people in this country that has been organizing since October in groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Ceasefire. I’ve gone to many of these actions, and they are, you hear again and again, not in our name.”
On March 8, 2025, Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia and Palestine activist was inside his university-owned apartment Saturday night when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered and took him into custody, as told by his attorney, Amy Greer. This case is the first publicly known case of a deportation effort under President Trump’s executive order against students who joined protests against the war in Gaza. Amy Greer spoke on the phone to one of the ICE agents saying that Mahmoud Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card. The agent simply stated that they were going to be revoking his card instead.
These types of actions will become common as on Sunday a message on X from Secretary of State Marco Rubio states the administration “will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.
The Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County
This has serious implications for the future of journalism as a whole because if President Donald Trump is willing to attack the First Amendment rights of student protesters, one can only imagine what he might do with a full-time journalist. As provided by an anonymous source, “We’ve already seen the prioritizing of news outlets like Breitbart News, which have spread “alt-right white supremacist lies.” This could outright lead to the destruction of diverse news as there have been signs of the defunding of organizations like NPR, which supports the left wing and democrats.
Despite the true reasoning behind President Donald Trump’s creation of this executive order, it has actually brought to light actual antisemitic that have been done to Jewish students by extremists. Cornell University junior Amanda Silberstein says “she has been physically assaulted and harassed online and in person and feels unsafe on campus. She also says she feels some relief that “universities that have turned a blind eye to the harassment and assault of Jewish students can no longer ignore their basic responsibility to protect all students equally.”
President Donald Trump’s executive order is not being accepted without a fight as protesters are already starting to fight back against this injustice wherever they can and organizations like Palestine Legal are providing legal counsel with immigration attorneys for students who aren’t citizens.
In the end, if President Donald Trump thinks he can fire off executive orders like this and expect serious backlash, then he’s got another thing coming.
