Trump WH Aims to Purge Colleges of Pro-Hamas Students

The Trump administration is floating a plan to prevent certain universities from having any foreign students enrolled if the State Department decides there are too many pro-Hamas individuals on their campus, Axios reported on Thursday.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has led a charge over the past month to remove university students who have openly supported Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. Rubio’s “Catch and Revoke” program has pulled visas from more than 300 students nationwide in the past three weeks, an official told the outlet.

“Everyone is fair game,” the official added.

The new plan is seen as extension of the "Catch and Revoke" program. The Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which certifies schools to accept student visa holders, could rule a university ineligible to accept students if they feel their intentions re not to get an education.

On March 6, Rubio announced on X that the U.S. government would be seeking out any foreigners who support terrorist organizations: “Those who support designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, threaten our national security. The United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists. Violators of U.S. law — including international students — face visa denial or revocation, and deportation.”

The State Department plans to use artificial intelligence to rapidly review news articles for names of foreign nationals engaged in such activity.

Civil libertarians have balked at the administration’s tactics saying such actions are a slippery slope. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan free-speech group, said the government using such a broad brush to decide who is "pro-Hamas" is "a worrying escalation."

"Deemed 'pro-Hamas' by whom? This kind of explicitly viewpoint-driven decision-making is ripe for abuse and risks arbitrary enforcement," FIRE legal director Will Creeley told the outlet.

“The government enlisting AI to police speech online should scare the hell out of every American,” he added on X.

The government official told Axios that universities should proceed accordingly knowing the administration is serious about expelling Hamas supporters.

“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 administration has already been hit with several lawsuits over their detainments. Earlier in the month, Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist, was arrested in New York with his attorneys arguing he was targeted strictly for his views that run counter to the administration.

Khalil’s arrest has been seen as the first high-profile statement by the Trump administration that the U.S. will no longer tolerate public support of a terrorist organization.

On Thursday, federal authorities detained Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, a doctoral student at Tufts University, and revoked her visa after an investigation found she had "engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans."