President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29 aimed at combating the “explosion of antisemitism” in the United States, pledging to cancel the visas of non-citizen college students and other pro-Palestinian protestors. A White House fact sheet posted the day after stated, “We put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and will deport you.”
Trump’s order to deport those that don’t echo the U.S.’ pro-Israel sentiments is another example of him pushing the boundaries of the Constitution, and what it means to be American. The labeling of pro-Palestinian protesters in large as “pro-Hamas” or “pro-jihadist” is a thinly veiled attempt to have a reason to deport Trump’s political enemies—and a blatant foot on the gas pedal to accelerate the U.S. toward a totalitarian government model.
Student visa holders in the U.S. already have statutes put in place to prevent them from committing crimes while studying in the country’s borders. The deportation order makes students’ not only wary of their actions, but their speech as well.
The fear this generates is antithetical to the First Amendment rights of free speech, protest and association.
Firstly, the rights the First Amendment grants are not solely awarded to American citizens, but everyone within U.S. borders. In the 1945 case, Bridges v. Wixon, the Supreme Court decided to not deport Australian immigrant Harry Bridges over allegedly holding Communist sentiments, despite the federal government’s efforts to do so.
This precedent was set 80 years ago, in the wake of rampant fascism and totalitarianism seen across the world. The precedent was set to prevent the federal government from infringing upon the rights of all people of the land of the United States, just as the Italian and Nazi German governments infringed upon the rights of their own. However, the precedent was wholeheartedly American and deeply rooted in the values the U.S. was founded on.
If a non-citizen has their Constitutional rights infringed upon, what will stop the government from infringing upon the rights of naturalized immigrant citizens? And what will stop them from infringing upon the rights of all citizens?
The deportation order also damages the principles higher education represents.
While K-12 curriculum and discussion is crafted by state governments, colleges and universities do not have to follow the same guidelines. The cradle of free discussion higher education allows for is essential to the actual education being provided to these students, and a large reason many foreign students decide to study in the U.S. in the first place.
It was one thing to bring local police decked out in riot gear, brandishing batons and tear gas canisters to prevent this free discussion—it’s an even bigger threat to exile foreign students from using it.
A large problem with this breach of the right to free speech is that it creates an echo chamber, one that has had more and more voices screaming into the void on a daily basis.
It is one that has support from the federal government, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replacing The New York Times, NBC News, NPR and Politico with one left-leaning Huffington Post, along with the right-leaning New York Post and Trump-friendly One America News and Breitbart. It is one that is sponsored by some of the richest men in the world.
The support a right-wing echo chamber has from the most powerful men on the planet is because it allows them to weaken the values of democracy and implant themselves and their economic ruthlessness into the federal government. And sadly, it worked.
By eliminating the political enemies of Trump—who received praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his statement that Gazans should be resettled elsewhere—and pro-Israel billionaires like Miriam Adelson, it pulls the voices counteracting the echoes out, and, in turn, shifts us further away from what the justices that officiated Bridges v. Wixon wanted to prevent, and closer to a totalitarian oligarchy.
Proponents of deportation of those that don’t share the sentiments with the government may later regret to find that their views may come under the same scrutiny.
Trump’s order on ideological deportation and the embedding of billionaires into the federal government together threaten free speech, and the values of all Americans within the 99%. What might be the threat of deportation of “pro-Hamas” individuals now, might in time, be the threat of deportation to any of those who don’t buy into the ideas that billionaires peddle to the masses.
