Draconian policies in name of security leave First Amendment rights at dangerous tipping point

It is no surprise that one of Donald Trump’s primary uses of executive power since taking office has been focused on the deportation of immigrants. On the campaign trail, he promised to launch mass deportations and used inflammatory rhetoric to “otherize” foreign nationals in the US, portraying immigrants as a threat to public safety and the economy. Despite these promises, Trump actually deported nearly 20,000 fewer individuals during his first month in office than the monthly average under the Biden Administration. However, according to Reuters, the president wasted no time shocking the nation by deporting international students legally residing in the US and driving others to leave the country to voluntarily avoid such detainment. This represents not only a violation of US law and of the fundamental human rights of the students being targeted but an attack on the foundational principles of American society, a threat to the entire nation’s First Amendment freedoms, and to the traditions of innovation and justice-seeking that would make America truly great. 

International student exchange programs were first organized by the US government after the world wars, according to the US State Department. Since their creation, these programs have striven not only to promote American students’ cultural understanding and professionalism, but, crucially, to bring foreign nationals to the US to take advantage of the opportunities of the American education system, promote knowledge of American customs, and enrich the nation with talent drawn from around the globe. Such programs have become a critical pillar of American soft power, strengthening diplomatic ties and giving the US greater control of its image abroad. During the 2023-2024 academic year, more than 1.1 million international students studied in the US, the Institute of International Education found. 

Recently, however, the Trump Administration has rescinded this welcome for many international students. Among the first students to be deported by the administration was Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate of Columbia University, a man with no criminal record whose only offense appears to be having participated in pro-Palestinian protests last year. The nation was shocked by the case, which, according to The Associated Press, involved arresting Khalil in his apartment, revoking his green card, and threatening to detain his wife, who was eight months pregnant at the time. Despite public outcry and criticism from legal experts, several similar arrests have followed. Ranjani Srinivasan, a PhD student at Columbia who came to the US from India on a student visa, fled to Canada after ICE officers came to her apartment to tell her that she faced deportation. Though Srinivasan did not participate in on-campus protests, she was accidentally arrested when trying to navigate around a demonstration on her way home, and the administration has cited this arrest as the impetus for the revocation of her visa. Earlier this month, Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holding Columbia student who helped organize pro-Palestinian protests, was arrested at what the BBC says Mahdawi understood to be an interview required as part of his application for US citizenship. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed that the visas of more than 300 international students have been revoked since Trump took office.

The Trump Administration has argued that the students it has deported posed a threat to national security, which would give the Secretary of State the power to cancel their legal residency. Many students who have had their visas revoked had criminal records or previous encounters with law enforcement, The Guardian reported, although rescinding individuals’ legal residency over such infractions—some as minor as a speeding ticket—is unprecedented, and many legal scholars argue that the US government lacks such powers. Khalil, Srinivasan, Mahdawi, and the other students forced from the country over protest activity may have posed a threat to the popularity of Trump and the Republican Party, but they were not a danger to national security. The true threat lies in assertions that the safety of the nation depends upon the preservation of the president’s hold on power. 

Trump alleges that the deportation of students involved in pro-Palestinian activism is part of efforts to contain antisemitism in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks and the invasion of Gaza. However, there is little if any evidence linking international students to antisemitic acts at universities. At the same time, Trump and his allies have repeatedly used racist and xenophobic rhetoric, especially in pursuing their deportation projects. During a press conference last month, Rubio referred to individuals whose visas have been revoked as “lunatics,” and the president sparked nationwide outrage when he falsely claimed while campaigning that Haitian migrants in an Ohio community were eating their neighbors’ pets. What is more, former Chief of Staff John Kelly’s accounts of Trump praising Hitler raise questions about the authenticity and potential political motivations of the president’s concern with antisemitism.

The deportation of international students must be understood not only in the context of Trump’s xenophobia, but as part of his assault on America’s education system. Disempowering higher education, Trump and his allies believe, will destroy the nation’s “liberal elite”; more importantly to the administration’s interests, it will silence the voices of young people, who are one of its greatest sources of dissent. The New York Times reports that, since taking office, Trump has suspended or canceled more than $3 billion of federal funding to the nation’s top universities, ransoming funding to pressure institutions to comply with a variety of demands. Columbia University, for instance, was requested to expand the authority of campus police, ban mask wearing by student demonstrators, complete “comprehensive admission reform,” and accept academic receivership for certain departments, which would give the federal government control over what is taught in courses in these programs. Additionally, the administration has launched investigations into more than 50 universities across the nation. Though such measures threaten to interrupt medical research, technological innovation, and the other forms of progress to which any concept of American exceptionalism is owed, Trump feels a need to rein in universities to contain the spread of “wokism.” Cracking down on campus protests on trumped-up allegations of antisemitism is a new weapon in the president’s arsenal in his war on political dissenters. To protect international students and evade further scrutiny from the administration, universities may be willing to capitulate to Trump’s demands in the wake of student deportations, not only limiting protest activity but cutting or redesigning academic programs according to the administration’s whims and political agenda.

Because of their non-citizen status, the students targeted so far have been uniquely vulnerable to Trump’s crackdown on free speech and learning, but it would be short-sighted to assume that natural citizens could not become the victims of such extreme suppression. In a post on Truth Social, Trump promised that any individuals engaging in “illegal protests” on campuses “will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.” On numerous occasions, Trump has said he would be interested in deporting some American citizens to El Salvador, and recently suggested to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele that his nation build five detention centers for the purpose; White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has clarified that such actions would only target “heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly.” Though it is unlikely that such actions would be taken, due both to Trump’s cognizance of their unpopularity and to the legal checks on the president’s power, the president has shown an alarming willingness to suppress dissenters.

More destructive than suppressing US citizens by arrest or other means analogous to the unwarranted deportation of international students would be coercing people to censor themselves. Already, institutions across the US have begun to compromise their values under pressure from the Trump Administration. Several of the nation’s most prestigious law firms have committed hundreds of millions of dollars of pro bono services to causes endorsed by Trump after coming under fire from the administration for offering services to his political opponents and legal prosecutors, the New York Times reported. Due in part to concerns about retaliation by law enforcement, the black community was largely absent from the nationwide “Hands Off!” protests held in opposition of Trump earlier this month, which is a threat to the integrity of the First Amendment. In an open letter published in March, 1,900 members of the National Academies warned that Trump is creating a “climate of fear” that has threatened innovation by driving some scientists to withdraw their names from papers, pause their research, and stop using scientifically accurate vocabulary blacklisted by the Trump Administration. It is easy to watch international students being deported and then forget about their struggle as the news cycle moves on, to assure oneself that the rights of citizens would never be violated as those of a class of “others” while accepting the silence left in the wake of privileged institutions already being censored. We cannot lose sight of the suppression of the voices of the people, nor can we allow ourselves to fall silent. 

Trump and his allies are well aware of the dangers of limiting free speech. An executive order signed on Trump’s first day in office asserts that “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society” and decries Biden Administration actions that “trampled free speech rights.” A 2023 study published in Nature showed that conservatives are more likely to have their content taken down or their accounts suspended on social media, and, although this is caused by these accounts promoting more disinformation than left-leaning users, Trump and his supporters have nonetheless alleged that it is evidence of unfair censorship of their views. Trump’s creation of Truth Social and Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, since rebranded as X, have been touted as efforts to balance the media landscape and protect conservative media users. Campaigns by conservative action groups to ban books that explore issues of racial or LGBTQ+ identity and the Trump administration’s removal of such books from the library of the US Naval Academy also reveal the president’s awareness of the power of speech. Intimidating students and universities or removing dissenters from the country altogether represents a move to consolidate power without regard for basic decency or the fundamental tenets of American society. The president realizes that domination of the media landscape is critical to establish political authority. He refuses to be silenced, but appears willing to play the part of the silencer.

It is natural, and essential, in a republic for government to encounter dissent from the public. Considering that Trump’s approval rating, as measured by Reuters/Ipsos polling, has never reached higher than 47%, and sat at 43% earlier this April, there is no doubt that the nation harbors dissatisfaction with the current administration. Trump’s policies are not merely controversial, but are shaking the foundation of the nation. “Flooding the zone”—be it by dismantling international free trade, cutting funding for programs that provide free school lunch and support students with disabilities, extending a tax cut for the nation’s highest earners that would increase national debt by $4.2 trillion over the next decade, divesting from public media organizations that are often the only source of news and disaster response information in rural and disadvantaged communities, or any of the other measures endorsed by the Republican Party—has the potential to redefine American identity. Criticism of such moves must be permitted if the government is to be responsive to the American people. It is critical for the health of American democracy that the people be able to express worry and anger about perceived injustices supported by any elected official, including Trump. As far as the enlightened principles on which this country was founded are concerned, the freedom of expression extends to all people, regardless of national origin or other factors of identity, and the US must acknowledge this in its creation of policy. If we fail to do so, what remains of the nation’s promise of liberty and justice?

The deportation of Khalil and other international students does not make Trump a “Law and Order” president, but a politically motivated witch hunter. It does not show the president’s might, but reveals his fear of unpopularity, his narcissistic urge to control his image and dehumanize those who threaten his power. It will not weed out antisemitism, but breed intolerance and kill progress. The country is at a pivotal moment in which its people, regardless of their opinion of Trump and the Republican Party generally, must demand the protection of the First Amendment rights of all in their communities, or else brace themselves for the whimper of the end of the free world.

by Aria Boehler

Published April 28th, 2025

Oshkosh West Index Volume 121 Issue VII