The US government should end its sweeping effort to arbitrarily arrest and deport international students and scholars in retaliation for their political viewpoints and activism related to Palestine, Human Rights Watch said today. The administration's statements and actions reveal that its justifications for the arrests and planned deportations are illegitimate and false.
The recent spate of arrests is part of a wider crackdown on noncitizen students and academics. The administration, which seeks to punish and deter Palestine activism on university campuses across the country, also says it has revoked hundreds of student visas. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims, without any credible explanation, that students' and scholars' activism is harmful to US foreign policy.
"The arrests and deportations of noncitizen students and scholars for expressing their political views are creating a climate of fear on campuses across the country," said John Raphling, associate US program director at Human Rights Watch. "The Trump administration's actions are an attack on free speech and threaten the very foundations of a free society."
On March 25, 2025, masked federal agents wearing black hooded sweatshirts seized Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student from Türkiye and Fulbright scholar on a student visa, from a public sidewalk near her home in a Boston suburb, and took her into custody. The federal government transported her over a thousand miles away to a detention center in Louisiana and said it intends to deport her.
DHS officials alleged that Ozturk "engaged in activities in support of Hamas," apparently because she co-authored an opinion piece in a student newspaper calling on Tufts University to "recognize the Palestinian genocide" and divest from investments connected to Israel.
On March 8, DHS arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and lawful permanent resident. Khalil was detained and slated for removal not because he is alleged to have committed any crime, but for his participation in campus protests related to the hostilities in Gaza. DHS has also sought to arrest and deport Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University undergraduate and lawful permanent resident from South Korea who has lived in the US since childhood.
Protests grew on college campuses across the US in the months following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel's military operations in Gaza. As the death toll in Gaza soared amid grave human rights violations carried out by Israeli forces, campus protests proliferated and over 3,000 students were arrested in the spring of 2024. The protest movement emerged as a flashpoint during the 2024 presidential election.
As a candidate, Donald Trump falsely equated protests against the Israeli military's extensive bombardment of Gaza with antisemitism and support for terrorism. He threatened "any student that protests, I throw them out of the country." The Republican Party platform included a commitment to "[d]eport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again."
Upon taking office, President Trump said: "To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests … we will find you, and we will deport you." Following Khalil's arrest, the official White House X account declared "Shalom, Mahmoud" and announced a campaign against "terrorist sympathizers," and Trump personally posted that "[t]his is the first arrest of many to come." Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration had already canceled "hundreds" of student visas.
The Trump administration has claimed the right to revoke immigrants' legal status based on a provision of the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act that allows the secretary of state to determine that a person's presence in the country "would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest." The Trump administration is deploying this rationale mostly without serious explanation or individualized determination beyond citing the protest activity or political expression of the people it has targeted.
This assertion of unchecked authority fits a pattern, exemplified by the administration's recent deportation to an El Salvadoran prison of 173 Venezuelans living in the US without a hearing under a contentious reading of the Alien Enemies Act of 1789. The administration claims that under this act, it can remove any Venezuelan citizens it deems to be members of a gang called Tren de Aragua, which it claims is connected to the Venezuelan government.
DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar revealingly cited to "pro-Palestinian activity" as the reason for Khalil's impending deportation and refused to answer whether protesting itself was grounds for deportation. Khalil has not been convicted of any crime or even disciplined by Columbia University, though well after his arrest, DHS said he omitted information on his green card application. Chung was once arrested then released for being present at a sit-in protest, but she has not been convicted of any crime. And Ozturk apparently did nothing more than co-author an opinion piece.
These immigration actions reflect the administration's pattern of exerting pressure on universities to silence protests related to the ongoing hostilities in Gaza. The administration has threatened to terminate government funding and to conduct Department of Justice investigations if universities do not stop Palestine activism on campus. Officials have demanded that universities provide the names and nationalities of protesters and activists to law enforcement officials.
The US has a long and fraught history when it comes to advocacy and protest related to Palestine. The nongovernmental organization Palestine Legal has said that they responded to more than 1,700 complaints of "suppression incidents" of "speech supportive of Palestinian rights" between 2014 and 2020.
Punishing people for exercising their rights to free speech and assembly is a violation of international human rights law. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the US ratified in 1992, noncitizens have the right to hold opinions and to express them.
These rights are especially important in an academic setting. Furthermore, the administration's legal theories have been the basis for an attempted end-run around legal protections normally held by lawful residents facing removal from the US.
"The Trump administration is claiming the authority to punish and remove noncitizen dissenters at will, without showing any meaningful justification," Raphling said. "These actions not only violate the rights of those being targeted, but by intimidating others into silence, they represent a much wider threat to the right to free expression."
