Pro-Israel groups credited for guiding Trump in arrests of international college students
Pro-Israel groups that have used social media and surveillance to create blacklists of campus activists are basking in credit for providing the Trump administration a roadmap for identifying international students to detain and deport.
Before federal agents seized students and scholars from universities, including Columbia, Georgetown, and Tufts, these organizations compiled lists of thousands of students and professors, many of whom are US citizens, others who are foreign nationals, whom they claim have participated in antisemitic speech or behavior. Those claims can range from allegedly punching a Jewish classmate and participating in protests and encampments that turned violent, to writing and supporting editorials calling for divestment from Israel.
Critics say these groups fuel online intimidation and curb free speech.
After Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk was apprehended Tuesday evening, the 100-year-old Zionist organization Betar US said it provided the government with her name.
“She was on our list,” Betar US posted on the social media platform X, with a video of Öztürk’s arrest on the streets of Somerville. The group said it would provide the names of 1,800 people next week and asked followers to submit proof of others whom it would recommend the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest and deport.
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Canary Mission had also targeted Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and permanent resident whose visa was revoked earlier in March; and Momodou Taal, a British and Gambian graduate student at Cornell University the Trump administration is now seeking to deport.
Öztürk’s older brother, Asım Öztürk, blamed Canary Mission for targeting his sister, calling the organization in a post on LinkedIn a “pro-Israel platform actively engaged in blacklisting individuals who express support for Palestine.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in an emailed statement that ICE is not working with Betar or Canary Mission, or receiving tips from them through its tip line. But neither Homeland Security nor the State Department would answer questions about whether they were working from lists developed by the groups.
Homeland Security also declined to answer questions about how the administration is prioritizing students for enforcement.
In an emailed statement Canary Mission said no one affiliated with the organization has been in touch with the Trump administration.
“We have no relationship with this or the previous Biden administration. We are apolitical,” Canary Mission said. “We investigate hatred across the North American political spectrum, including the far-right, far-left and anti-Israel activists.”
In its ethics policy, Canary Mission said promoting the boycotting, divestment, and sanctioning of Israel is enough to land someone on its lists.
The organization also devoted a web page to another Tufts student who coauthored the op-ed with Öztürk, Nicholas M. Ambeliotis Jr.
While he’s an American student, he’s still concerned about harassment and professional repercussions, said his father, Nicholas M. Ambeliotis Sr.
“He was speaking up against the bloodshed in Gaza, not supporting Hamas,” his father said. ”They’re intentionally trying to harm him professionally or down the road, saying things that aren’t true about him.”
Individuals and groups have been tagging government officials or pointing to these lists on social media, so it should come as no surprise federal agencies are acting on the information, said Mohammad Saleem, an attorney for Taal, the Cornell graduate student whose visa is being revoked after he participated in campus protests last year.
“These organizations are actively trying to send their biased information of anybody who they deem to be hostile or their definition of un-American on X and elsewhere,” Saleem said. “They have been yelling and screaming loudly ... the government would naturally see these materials.”
Immigration officials acknowledged in court documents that as part of President Trump’s executive order to combat antisemitism, they collected information against Taal from “open sources,” although they did not identify which specifically.
“Open-source information is defined as unclassified information that has been published or broadcast in some manner to the general public,” said Roy Stanley, a unit chief within ICE, in court documents.
The Middle East Forum, a conservative nonprofit, claimed the arrest and deportation proceedings against Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri were prompted by its published report alleging Suri supports and has links to Hamas.
An official with the Department of Homeland Security on social media accused Suri, an Indian national, of spreading Hamas propaganda and cited his ties to a Hamas leader, echoing statements from the Middle East Forum. Suri is married to a US citizen of Palestinian descent whose father is a former Hamas adviser, according to the Associated Press.
Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, said the organization doesn’t have a list of targets it sends to the State Department or other agencies, nor is he aware of the forum receiving a query from the government. But the group’s reports and newsletters are well read among policymakers, he said.
“The era of professors using the shield of academic freedom to promote terror is over,” Roman said.
Another organization, the longtime conservative media watchdog Accuracy in Media, created more than 2,100 domain names for individuals it deems antisemitic that it posts online, said its president, Adam Guillette.
“We’re in the process of applying for a Guinness world record,” said Guillette, “because we now own more domain names than anybody on the planet.”
Accuracy in Media was early and loud in targeting students after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israelis by Hamas. The group drove a mobile billboard around Harvard University showing the names and images of students involved in a group statement that blamed Israel for the attacks and dubbing them “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”
Guillette said AIM did the same at “dozens” of campuses, returning repeatedly to Columbia University, where students had staged a lengthy pro-Palestinian encampment.
The organization recently crowed that its pressure campaign had worked, after the US Department of Education launched an investigation into antisemitism at Columbia and the Trump administration revoked $400 million in federal grants and contracts. Columbia has agreed to an array of the administration’s demands in the hopes of restoring funding, then replaced its president amid continued tumult.
Guillette, however, maintained Accuracy in Media is focused on those who engage in violence or coordinate with terrorist organizations. Öztürk, the Tufts grad student, was “not really on our radar,” he said.
The tactics used by these organizations aren’t new, unusual, or restricted to the right or left. After the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, third-party groups scraped videos and websites to hunt down people who participated in the riot and sent that information to federal authorities.
Little is known about some of these digital advocacy groups formed to combat antisemitism, how they are funded, or what criteria they use to make their lists.
Canary Mission, which has been around since 2015, has been funded by wealthy private donors. One tax filing in 2016 suggests Canary Mission is linked to an Israeli nonprofit called Megamot Shalom. The nonprofit Forward has reported that Megamot Shalom’s mission is to use digital media to protect Israel from the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. Israeli and Jewish media have reported the Israeli government has used Canary Mission’s list to bar political activists from entering the country.
Betar has been considered an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League, which says the organization embraces Islamophobia and harasses Muslims online and in person.
Betar declined to answer questions about how it compiled its list and or its claim the Trump administration is operating on the information the organization provided.
“While we thank the Trump administration, we urge many more deportations and quicker,” said Betar spokesman Daniel Levy.
Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit, said the Trump administration needs to be transparent about what information and evidence it relies on to support detaining and trying to deport these students.
“The government needs to show their work,” Hussain said. “We are seeing mass repression take place right now. It is aimed at people who are engaged in First Amendment protected speech.”