U of A students alarmed by Trump order to deport pro-Palestinian protesters

Some University of Arizona students and faculty expressed alarm and dismay Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered deportations of non-citizen college students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

“This is disgusting. Weaponizing legal and immigration authority for political persecutions is fascist,” said Jeremy Bernick, a law student and president of UA’s Graduate and Professional Student Council.

“We are collectively better than this. We will fight this as an attack on our communities, free speech, and the human right to be free of oppression,” Bernick told the Arizona Daily Star.

In the executive order Wednesday, Trump promised “forceful and unprecedented steps” to “combat the explosion of anti-Semitism” on campuses and streets across the country, citing protests that have taken place since the Israel-Gaza war started on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Hamas terror attack on Israel followed by Israel’s retaliation in Gaza.

“Deport Hamas Sympathizers and Revoke Student Visas: ‘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,’” says the White House fact sheet on the executive order.

“I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump pledged.

A Tucson immigration attorney, Jesse Evans-Schroeder, said Friday it wasn’t a violation of student visas to partake in political protests on campuses.

Since the Israel-Gaza war began, protests and encampments erupted at a number of universities across the U.S., including the University of Arizona.

Protests and encampments were held at the UA in spring 2024, leading to clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers. Student organizations at the UA, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Students Against Apartheid, said at the time they were protesting to demand UA’s disinvest from Israel, despite Arizona laws making such divestment illegal.

Two encampments at the UA ended in arrests after being broken up by UA police, assisted by the Tucson Police Department, Pima County Sheriff’s Department and Arizona Department of Public Safety, with pepper balls and tear gas after multiple warnings to protesters to vacate the area near Park Avenue and University Boulevard after 10:30 p.m. in accordance with campus curfews.

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“I’m not particularly surprised that the Trump admin is pursuing draconian anti-free speech policies. It’s up to the UA to protect its students from this tyranny,” said Max Thomas, a Graduate and Professional Student Council member who was present at the encampments last spring. “It remains to be seen whether the UA admin, which has violently suppressed anti-genocide protests, will choose now to protect these very students from the encroaching fascism of the Trump admin.”

UA officials have said police action against protesters was taken only after the protests endangered public safety.

The university issued a statement Friday saying, “Antisemitism in any form is unacceptable and will not be tolerated at the University of Arizona.”

Trump’s executive order fact sheet promised “immediate action” by the U.S. Department of Justice to “quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.” It asks every federal executive department and agency leader to review and report to the White House within 60 days on all criminal and civil authorities and actions available for fighting anti-Semitism.

“University leaders continue to monitor the shifting landscape and regulations and will provide updates as appropriate,” the UA said Friday.

Bernick, of the Graduate and Professional Student Council, said Trump’s executive order “is a sad throwback to the xenophobic and disgraced periods of U.S. immigration history like the Chinese Exclusion Act of the 19th century, America’s racist German national detention program of WWI, and the Japanese American internment program of WWII.”

Thomas said he was at a loss for words about what he called the Trump administration’s attacks on marginalized people, as well as with how little resistance is being putting up.

“Very, very, very bleak,” Thomas said. “I don’t see things ending well. I would describe the feeling of myself and my friends at the UA as quiet, hopeless, betrayed and frustrated.”

UA Chair of the Faculty Leila Hudson said the Trump order encroaches on the constitutional freedoms held dearly in America.

“There is no ‘Palestine exception’ to our constitutionally protected freedom of speech and other First Amendment rights which apply to everyone in our community,” Hudson said. “… And I personally look forward to seeing the legal challenges to this directive, both as a Palestinian and a citizen of this republic.”