White House threatens to ban foreign students who oppose Israel's genocide in Gaza
Foreign student tuition is a major source of income for US universities and colleges
The White House is threatening to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides too many are involved in protests against Israel's genocide in Gaza, Axios reported on 27 March.
The effort, which would eliminate a significant source of revenue for the affected educational institutions, marks another escalation of Trump's aggressive crackdown on free speech on college campuses on behalf of Israel.
Axios writes that the idea of prohibiting colleges from enrolling any student visa-holders grew out of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's "Catch and Revoke" program, which focuses on students who protest against Israel's war on Gaza.
So far, more than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked in the three weeks since the "Catch and Revoke" program began. There are currently 1.5 million student visa holders in the US.
In an attempt to justify the move, a senior State Department official labeled student demonstrators speaking out against Israel's slaughter of women and children in Gaza as "pro-Hamas" and "Hamasniks."
"Everyone is fair game," the official said.
In the past, US universities and colleges have been barred from accepting foreign students if the government determined they have too many student-visa holders using their enrollment as a cover to simply live and work in the US.
However, the White House is threatening to decertify schools in response to pro-Palestine campus protests.
"Every institution that has foreign students ... will go through some sort of review," the official said. "You can have so many bad apples in one place that it leads to decertification of the school ... I don't think we're at that point yet. But it is not an empty threat."
The move has drawn criticism from free speech advocates.
"Deemed 'pro-Hamas' by whom? This kind of explicitly viewpoint-driven decision-making is ripe for abuse and risks arbitrary enforcement," said Will Creeley, the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and _expression_ (FIRE).
Universities and colleges will be incentivised to comply with the White House demands, given that student visa holders are a lucrative revenue stream for colleges that can be choked off by the executive branch.
"That's one of their biggest cash cows, foreign students. That's a meaningful source of revenue for them," a senior Justice Department official said.
"What you're going to see in the not-too-distant future is the universities that we can show that were not doing anything to stop these demonstrations in support of Hamas — or encouraged enrollment by activists — ... we can stop approving student visas for them, and they can no longer admit foreign students," the official said.