Trump targets pro-Palestinian students at Rutgers for deportation

🔴 Student visas revoked at Rutgers

🔴 Rutgers officials say it is “without explanation”

🔴 Trump administration appears to target Palestinian sympathizers

In what appears to be the targeting of Palestinian sympathizers and those who protested the Israel-Hamas war, the Trump administration has begun revoking student visas at college campuses across the U.S.

Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway confirmed Rutgers students had been impacted and claimed the revocations of their visas was “without explanation.”

Various news reports detailed about 250 visa revocations nationwide including about a dozen at Rutgers.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has previously said students who participated in anti-Israel campus protests could see their student visas terminated.

Rubio denied the revocations were a violation of free-speech rights.

“If they’re taking [part in] activities that are counter to our foreign – to our national interest, to our foreign policy,” Rubio said, “We’ll revoke the visa.”

Rubio did say some of the revocations were unrelated to anti-Israel activity and instead were related to “potential criminal activity.”

Rutgers protests

There were various protests staged on campuses across New Jersey, but the largest was a tent city erected on the New Brunswick Campus of Rutgers University.

Students for Justice in Palestine & The Endowment Justice Collective set up camp on the Voorhees Mall along College Avenue and vowed not to leave until their demands for Rutgers to divest its interests in Israel are met.

"We will not leave Voorhees Mall the same way Palestinians in Gaza refuse to leave their homes until our demands are met," the group said in a statement. "There are no more universities in Gaza, why should we go to school and resume business as usual when Palestinians are being murdered for their sole crime of being Palestinians?"

Holloway under fire

The presidents of Rutgers, Northwestern and other universities were summoned before a congressional committee last May.

Rutgers’ Holloway defended the decision to end pro-Palestinian encampments through negotiation rather than police force, telling a House committee he defused the danger without ceding ground to protesters.

Holloway and others were accused of allowing an anti-Jewish climate to flourish on campus and nor doing enough to protect Jewish students.

Holloway said Rutgers is not immune from the increase in anti-Semitic activity across the country. He also blamed social media declarations that are taken as true.

"It is safe to be a Jewish student at Rutgers," Holloway said, adding that Rutgers police have stepped up their presence. He said the New Brunswick campus has "incredible" resources for Jewish students.

Money at stake

The Trump administration has been aggressive in going after universities that have been accused of tolerating antisemitism and not doing enough to protect Jewish students.

On Tuesday night, the White House confirmed more than $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and $790 million for Northwestern University had been frozen while the schools are investigated for alleged civil rights violations.

Rutgers has also been the target of a civil rights investigation by the Trump administration, but it does not appear that any federal funding to the University has been frozen at this time.

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