Former president Donald Trump, at a Sunday rally in Democratic-heavy New Jersey, promised to “immediately deport” foreign students who participate in anti-Israel protests amid recent chaotic campus demonstrations disrupting academia.
“When I’m president, we will not allow our colleges to be taken over by violent radicals,” he said. “If you come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or antisemitism to campuses, we will immediately deport you. You’ll be out of that school.”
After protests erupted on college campuses in the weeks following Hamas’s brutal invasion of Israel on October 7, House Republicans sent a letter to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security demanding that foreign students who participated in rallies in support of Hamas be deported.
“We are concerned by recent reports of demonstrations on U.S. soil, including student demonstrations, in support of Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, following the shocking terrorist attacks by Hamas on our closest ally in the Middle East, Israel. These demonstrations potentially involve student visa holders,” Representatives Jim Banks (R., Ind.) and Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.) wrote in a letter addressed to Secretaries Antony Blinken and Alejandro Mayorkas.
The letter noted the many Students for Justice in Palestine chapters have issued statements praising Hamas terrorists as freedom fighters or martyrs and justifying their onslaught as necessary for the liberation of the Palestinian people.
Signed by more than a dozen House Republicans, the letter demanded that the State Department and DHS investigate whether non–immigrant visa holders “have been rendered ineligible as a result of ‘endorsing or espousing’ terrorist activity by Hamas?”
Many prominent GOP lawmakers have for months called for the expulsion of foreign students engaged in such inflammatory behavior. Senator Tom Cotton has urged for aliens on student visas who have endorsed or espoused terrorist activity to be deported.
When asked in November by Senator Josh Hawley whether foreign “students . . . who . . . actively advocate for the elimination of Israel and attacks on Jewish individuals . . . [should] have their visas revoked,” Mayorkas stated that “it is a matter of legal interpretation of the statute” that he is “not in a position to provide” but that DHS is “assessing.”
Trump on Sunday also slammed President Biden for abandoning Israel by having threatened to withhold aid for armaments as Israel conducts its military operation in Gaza to destroy Hamas.
“This week he announced he would withhold shipping weapons to Israel as they fight to eradicate Hamas terrorists in Gaza,” Trump said as the audience booed. “It was shocking to hear it. Even while there are still American hostages being held by Hamas. . . . Crooked Joe’s actions is one of the worst betrayals of an American ally in the history of our country.”
“I support Israel’s right to win the war on terror,” he added.
During his administration, Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu were known to have a strong diplomatic relationship. After Biden last week said that an Israel Defense Forces invasion of Rafah, the last major Hamas stronghold, was a “red line” for his administration, Netanyahu rebuked him and said the country will pursue Hamas’s eradication so October 7 is never repeated.
City officials estimated that the Trump rally in Wildwood, N.J., along the Jersey Shore, drew a crowd of 80,000 to 100,000, Axios reported.
Trump said the audience size could compete with concerts of major music stars, many of whom are very progressive and criticize him openly. “We have a much bigger crowd than Bruce Springsteen,” he said.