GOP calls for deporting college protesters raise troubling 'free speech' concerns: analysis

10 November 2023

More than a month has passed since Hamas' Saturday, November 7 terrorist attack against Israel. Since then, thousands of people have died in the Israel-Hamas War.

The Hamas attack, according to Israeli officials, left more than 1400 people dead. And the Gaza Health Ministry has estimated the death count in Gaza to be more than 10,000, although Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf believes that the number is even higher.

The conflict has inspired intense protests on college campuses in the United States. Some Republicans have been attacking student critics of Israel's anti-Hamas operation as Hamas defenders, even calling for foreign students to be deported for supporting Hamas. But many critics of the Benjamin Netanyahu government are vehemently anti-Hamas.

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Journalist Nina Wang, in an article published by Mother Jones on November 9, warns that "threatening to deport international students" for allegedly "sympathizing with anti-Israel terrorists" raises troubling "free speech" and First Amendment concerns.

During the third 2024 GOP presidential debate on Wednesday night, November 8, Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) declared, "To every student who has come to our country on a visa to a college campus, your visa is a privilege, not a right. To all the students on visas who are encouraging Jewish genocide, I would deport you."

Similarly, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared, "If you are here on a student visa as a foreign national, and you're making common cause with Hamas, I'm canceling your visa — and I'm sending you home, no questions asked."

Deportation rhetoric has also been coming from someone who isn't running for president: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida).

But Kia Hamadanchy, senior federal policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told Mother Jones, "We have pretty clear precedent about how the First Amendment works in the United States, and that applies to more than just U.S. citizens."

Law professor Greg Magarian, who teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, is sounding the alarm as well.

Magarian told Mother Jones, "If you're a Palestinian young person who is here on a student visa, who wants to keep studying here, you might think, 'What if I just call for a ceasefire, or what if I call for justice for the victims of Israel's bombing campaign? Does that count as support for Hamas? Well, I don't know, but it might count if the government wants it to. So, I better not say those things.'"

Read Nina Wang's full Mother Jones' article at this link.

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