Foreign students are reportedly asking campus newspapers to scrub their comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict as the Trump administration deports alleged terrorism supporters.
Visa holders at American universities have requested that student publications make them anonymous in articles, remove their written-down commentary such as opinion pieces and have quit working for the outlets since President Donald Trump’s return to office, the Guardian reported. The panic comes as Trump’s officials have worked to deport foreign nationals accused of supporting terrorist groups or putting U.S. foreign policy at risk, citing federal law.
The trepidation around anti-Israel advocacy stands in contrast to the years of Joe Biden’s presidency, when activists frequently made national news at colleges by illegally taking over campus facilities in large numbers or espousing violent rhetoric against Israel and Jews.
The first highly publicized example of the Trump administration’s crackdown was its arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead a pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia University that cost the school millions of dollars in federal funding. Lawyers are fighting in court to keep the government from deporting him on the basis of national security.
The free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which has criticized Trump’s approach, questioned the sincerity of universities’ sudden support for pro-Palestinian expression since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
“If this is what it takes for colleges to start taking the First Amendment and free expression seriously, we’ll take it. But we’re not holding our breath,” said FIRE Campus Advocacy Director Lindsie Rank.
“At the same time universities are issuing statements in support of free speech, we’re also seeing rampant censorship of pro-Palestinian expression by college administrations,” Rank told the DCNF. “And we’re hearing from Jewish and pro-Israel students who feel chilled in expressing their views.”
“Meanwhile, we’re still handling plenty of our ‘usual’ cases that have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — things like student groups unable to table, student newspapers facing administrative pressure, and speakers being disinvited,” Rank said.
The University of Virginia (UVA) privately advised a student editor on a visa that articles linked to him or her could risk immigration status, according to the Guardian. This reportedly led the student to resign from the student paper. That paper told the outlet that the articles were “about Trump’s policies on universities, specifically regarding immigrants and pro-Palestine activism.”
UVA has also released statements saying it will support foreign students in navigating visa difficulties and that it stands for free speech, though the statements did not criticize Trump’s policies. UVA’s media team did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live & study in the United States of America.
When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country.
I’m glad to see one of the Columbia University terrorist sympathizers… pic.twitter.com/
jR2uVVKGCM — Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) March 14, 2025
Immigration experts previously told the DCNF that deporting migrants over their foreign policy stances is not a free speech issue and that the government historically has had broad authority to do so. The Trump administration shows no signs of stopping.
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in March. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.”
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