Trump, Other Republican Candidates Vow Deportation of Pro-Hamas Students

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald J. Trump speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Oct. 28, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

GOP presidential candidates, including former President Donald Trump, vowed to punish universities promoting anti-Israel sentiment and deport foreign students who support Hamas and other terror groups on American campuses.

If reelected, President Trump intends to implement “strong ideological screenings” for all immigrants coming into the United States, he said during the Oct. 28 annual summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

“If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country, and you’re not going to be getting into our country. I will cancel the student visas of Hamas sympathizers on college campuses. … All of the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests this month—nobody’s ever seen anything like it—come 2025, we will find you and we will deport you.”

President Trump pointed out that while he was in office, he took the “strongest action of any president in history to combat the vile scourge of anti-Semitism” by signing an executive order against “anti-Semitic hate on college campuses.”

“When I get back into office, I will put every single university and college president on notice. The American taxpayer will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers on American soil. Colleges and universities will purge the anti-Semitism,” he said.

Educational institutions that are anti-Semitic “will lose their accreditation and every last penny of federal student loans. It will not be paid to them, probably shouldn’t be paid to them anyway,” he said.

Other Candidate Statements

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) called for similar measures.

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“When we have students on campuses that are actually encouraging Jewish genocide, who are advocating for murder and supporting terrorism, those students should be expelled from the campus and those folks who are on visa should be taken, deported from our country,” he said in a recent interview with Fox News.

“Anytime you actually encourage for the genocide, the elimination of entire race of people, anytime you support terrorism and encourage murder, there should be consequences,” Mr. Scott said. “It should be consequences for those students, and it should be consequences for those universities.”

In an Oct. 24 X post, Republican presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis said that “if foreign students are out there celebrating Hamas’ atrocities, they should have their visas canceled and be deported.”

The Florida governor has ordered colleges across the state’s university system to “deactivate” the student group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) from campuses.

SJP termed Hamas’ attack on Israel earlier this month as “the resistance” and announced that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement,” according to Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of the state university system, in a letter ordering the disbanding of the groups.

Under Florida law, it is a felony to “knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization,” the letter said. “Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated.”

Republican calls for deporting pro-Hamas students and defunding universities that allow anti-Semitic messaging come as several schools are under criticism for allowing students groups to hold rallies in support of Hamas and against Israel.

At Harvard University, multiple student organizations co-signed a letter insisting that the Israeli government is “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” including Hamas massacring over 1,400 Israelis. This led to backlash from alumni and donors.

A truck displaying the Harvard University students who allegedly expressed their public support for the Hamas attacks on Israel drove around the campus for several days in October 2023. (Alice Giordano/The Epoch Times)

The University of Pennsylvania has come under fire for allowing a literary event on campus in September which its leaders admitted would feature “several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in anti-Semitism by speaking and acting in ways that denigrate Jewish people.”

Students Under Threat

Jewish students have been threatened at some universities.

In an Oct. 29 statement, Cornell Hillel, a Jewish student group at Cornell University, said that there have been threats directed toward a building housing the kosher and multicultural dining hall. Threats have also been made against Jewish faculty members, students, and staff, it said.

In mid-October, Richard Saller, interim president of Stanford University, released a statement after a “non-faculty instructor” reportedly downplayed the Jewish Holocaust.

Meanwhile, President Trump criticized the Biden administration for its stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. In his Oct. 28 Republican Jewish Coalition speech, he blamed President Biden for turning “a blind eye to the greatest outbreak of anti-Semitism in American history.”

“When asked recently about rising anti-Semitic hate, Joe Biden’s own press secretary had nothing to say about the rabid mobs in the street. They’re shouting ‘kill the Jews, kill the Jews’ and she had nothing to say,” President Trump said.

“In fact, she stuck up for the other side. She started talking about the other side. Nobody could believe it. Then she came back later, she said, ‘Oh, I misunderstood the question.’”

President Trump was referring to a recent press briefing in which White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about anti-Semitism.

She replied that the Biden administration has not seen any “credible threats” on the matter and instead said that “Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) criticized the response.

“What a weak answer. And why are you looking in the book? What’s the approved answer? The simple answer is yes, you are concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism,” he said in an Oct. 24 post.

The Epoch Times reached out to the White House for comment.