Trump threatens to deport, imprison foreign students for ‘illegal protests’
President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened colleges’ federal funding for allowing “illegal protests” and said American students will be expelled.
“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
The social media post comes after a federal task force on antisemitism last week announced it would visit 10 college campuses that had antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.
The institutions include: Columbia University, George Washington University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California.
Several of these institutions had high-profile anti-war protests in the months following the attack and faced intense scrutiny from Republicans in Congress.
Trump has already signed an executive order directing the Justice Department and attorney general to take “immediate action” to prosecute antisemitic crimes like vandalism and intimidation as well as investigate “anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.”
The Departments of Health and Human Services, Education and the General Services Administration on Monday also announced a comprehensive review of Columbia University’s federal contracts and grants because of an ongoing Title VI investigation into the school.
All schools that receive federal funds must comply with Title VI, a federal law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. Schools who violate the law could be at risk of losing funding.
Columbia is at risk of losing $51.4 million in federal contracts for “ongoing inaction in the face of relentless harassment of Jewish students,” according to a press release that said the government is considering “stop work orders” for those contracts. The task force also said it will conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia.
“Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very serious questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”
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Statement on President Trump’s Truth Social post threatening funding cuts for ‘illegal protests’
President Trump posted a message on Truth Social this morning that put social media and college campuses on high alert. He wrote:
Colleges can and should respond to unlawful conduct, but the president does not have unilateral authority to revoke federal funds, even for colleges that allow “illegal” protests.
If a college runs afoul of anti-discrimination laws like Title VI or Title IX, the government may ultimately deny the institution federal funding by taking it to federal court, or via notice to Congress and an administrative hearing. It is not simply a discretionary decision that the president can make.
President Trump also lacks the authority to expel individual students, who are entitled to due process on public college campuses and, almost universally, on private campuses as well.
Today’s message will cast an impermissible chill on student protests about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Paired with President Trump’s 2019 executive order adopting an unconstitutional definition of anti-Semitism, and his January order threatening to deport international students for engaging in protected expression, students will rationally fear punishment for wholly protected political speech.
As FIRE knows too well from our work defending student and faculty rights under the Obama and Biden administrations, threatening schools with the loss of federal funding will result in a crackdown on lawful speech. Schools will censor first and ask questions later.
Even the most controversial political speech is protected by the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court reminds us, in America, we don’t use the law to punish those with whom we disagree. Instead, “[a]s a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”
Misconduct or criminality — like true threats, vandalism, or discriminatory harassment, properly defined — is not protected by the First Amendment. In fact, discouraging and punishing such behavior is often vital to ensuring that others are able to peacefully make their voices heard.
However, students who engage in misconduct must still receive due process — whether through a campus or criminal tribunal. This requires fair, consistent application of existing law or policy, in a manner that respects students’ rights.
President Trump needs to stand by his past promise to be a champion for free expression. That means doing so for all views — including those his administration dislikes.
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