In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism targeting antisemitism on college campuses. The order creates an opening for the administration to deport international students who engage in protests against Israel.
“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,” Trump said in a fact sheet. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
The order states that the departments of state, education and homeland security should include recommendations for familiarizing institutions with grounds for inadmissibility under United States Code 1182(a)(3) “so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff.”
The U.S. code outlines grounds for inadmissibility regarding foreign policy and terrorist activity.
In a statement, DePaul Students for Justice in Palestine said the news has “personally hit a big toll” on its executive board. The group said two members have resigned their positions because they are not U.S. citizens and fear retribution.
Mary Hansen, senior manager of strategic communication at DePaul, said in a statement to The DePaulia that DePaul will “do everything possible to ensure DePaul is a safe and welcoming space” for every student.
“DePaul’s mission calls on us to uphold the dignity of all people, and international students are an integral part of our diverse community,” Hansen said. “DePaul has a robust antidiscrimination and anti-harassment policy and reporting mechanisms in place, and we investigate every complaint.”
Laila Farah, faculty adviser to Students for Justice in Palestine and an associate professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, said an organization called Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine formed in response to the removal of the 17-day pro-Palestinian protest encampment from last spring. Farah said members on the Faculty Council also wrote a letter to the university president regarding the executive order.
Farah said Trump’s executive order reflects a “weaponization of the word antisemitism,” which she believes to be caused by a long history of general lack of understanding of the conflict on both sides dating back to 1948.
The order comes to Students for Justice in Palestine as university administration extends the sanctions imposed on the student group because of last year’s protest encampment.
The sanctions were meant to be lifted this quarter but were extended through March after the club held a memorial event and walkout on Oct. 7, 2024, at St. Vincent’s Circle even though the original sanction restricted them from reserving campus spaces and using university funds. The event itself was a vigil focusing on the children who have died in Gaza since the most recent conflict began in 2023.
SJP later appealed the sanction extension on the grounds that “the initial sanctions are fundamentally unfair, disproportionate and inappropriate,” as their appeal letter to the DePaul Dean of Students, linked on Instagram, stated.
The organization said DePaul denied that appeal in late January.
Henna Ayesh, the organization’s president, said the executive board felt it necessary to hold the event last fall because many of its members have family and people they care about in the Palestinian territory.
Ayesh believes the continued sanctions represent “DePaul’s abandonment of Vincentian values.” The club’s appeal letter accused the university of violating the university’s stated value of “radical hospitality” by not providing a space for Palestinian students and faculty to grieve, mourn and speak at memorial events.
Referring to the sanctions, Hansen said the Dean of Students Office “generally does not share the outcome of a student conduct process.”
“DePaul’s conduct process seeks to educate our students about university policies and to instill an understanding of their responsibilities as members of our DePaul community,” she said, also noting DePaul’s Code of Student Responsibility.
Related Stories:
- ‘If we lose hope, we lose everything’: Israeli and Palestinian speakers call for dialogue over division
- Students for Justice in Palestine hold walkout on anniversary of October 7
- ‘It feels really sad’: DePaul encampment last one standing in city
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