Pro-Israel group says it has ‘deportation list’ and has sent ‘thousands’ of names to Trump officials: Betar US is among far-right groups supporting Trump effort to deport students involved in pro-Palestinian protests
#immigration #Zionism #betarus #deportation #Palestinians
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/israel-betar-deportation-list-trump
A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport-- claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.
"Betar US" is one of a number of rightwing, so called "pro-Israel" groups
that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests,
an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of #Mahmoud #Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University.
This week, Donald Trump said Khalil’s arrest was
just “the first of many to come”.
#BetarUS quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government.
Betar, 
which has been labelled an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group,
said on Monday that it had
“been working on deportations and will continue to do so”,
and warned that the effort would extend beyond immigrants. 
“Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month,” the group’s post on X read.
(It is very difficult to revoke US citizenship, though Trump has indicated an intention to try.)
Deporting speakers over supposed ‘propaganda’ is a stock authoritarian move
The group has compiled a so-called “deportation list”
naming individuals it believes are in the US on visas and have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming these individuals “terrorize America”.
A Betar spokesperson, #Daniel #Levy, said in a statement to the Guardian that Betar submitted 
“thousands of names” of students and faculty they believe to be on visas from institutions like Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Syracuse University and others to representatives of the Trump administration.
The group claims to have “documentation, including tapes, social media and more” to support their actions.
It claims to be sharing names with several high-ranking officials, including the secretary of state, Marco #Rubio; the White House homeland security adviser, Stephen #Miller; and the attorney general, Pam #Bondi, among others.
The White House and state department did not respond to questions about whether they are working with Betar or other groups to identify students for deportation.
Perfectly normal behavior of pro-Israeli #trolls!
Terrorizing the Jewish author and son of a #Holocaust survivor like this is perfectly normal!
Imagine what they would do to Palestinians and non jewish critics of the apartheid regime of #Israel
https://x.com/Betar_USA/status/1886174261783486751/photo/2
#Finkelstein #Terrorism #BetarUS #Politics #Antisemitism #USPol #Palestine #Lebanon #Gaza #Genocide #SanctionIsrael #BoycottIsrael
The #FarRight Group Building a List of Pro-Palestine Activists to Deport
#BetarUS said it has shared with the Trump administration a list of the “names of hundreds of terror supporters.”
"This conflation of speech critical to #Israel with #antisemitism or support of Hamas will do little to protect Jews in the United States from hate, said #JonahRubin, with #JewishVoiceForPeace, a progressive #JewishAmerican group that advocates for #Palestinian #HumanRights."
Jonah Valdez
February 6 2025
"The premise behind Trump’s more recent order is rooted in #ProjectEsther: a treatise by the authors of #Project2025. The document was billed as 'a blueprint to counter antisemitism' and offered strategies to target and silence critics of Israel, including deportation. A fact sheet about the executive order related by the Trump administration mirrored language from Project Esther and laid bare the order’s intent to 'cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses,' vowing to deport 'all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests.'
"Such ideas are increasingly gaining purchase in conservative discourse. Pledges to deport supporters of Palestinian rights were a key part of the Republican Party’s platform. A congressional bill introduced last May called for similar measures.
"#Academia is a key focus of Project Esther and Trump’s executive orders. While the most recent order instructs all agencies within the executive branch to take part in the crackdown, it encourages #surveillance in specific areas, such as #universities and even K-12 schools, where administrators are being told to monitor and report #InternationalStudents for possible deportation.
"On Monday, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights launched investigations into five schools — #ColumbiaUniversity; #UCLABerkley; #NorthwesternUniversity; #UniversityOfMinnesota, Twin Cities; and #PortlandStateUniversity — for #antisemitism, the first use of the executive order.
"'Americans and college students that visit the United States should be able to protest the #Israeli government’s human rights violations in the same way that the United United Nations, the International Criminal Court [#ICC], #AmnestyInternational, #HumanRightsWatch, and other respected institutions have for the past several years, without fear of retaliation,' said Robert McCaw, a leader with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who heads the government affairs department. He decried the order’s fact sheet of peddling anti-Muslim terms such as 'pro-Jihad.'"
"Trump’s efforts have inspired a grassroots campaign to identify possible targets for deportation. On #SocialMedia, groups such as #MothersAgainstCollegeAntisemitism and the #ChicagoJewishAlliance have shared links to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line and called on people to report 'foreign students and faculty who support Hamas' and 'students on visas who are suspected of engaging in pro-terror activities,' respectively."
Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/02/06/betar-palestine-school-activists-target-deport-trump/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/fCZve
#McCarthyism #HumanRightsAreNeverWrong #DontSnitch #ICE #ICERaids #ICEArrests #Deportation #CollegeStudents #FreeSpeech #Censorship #Fascism #AuthoritarianRule #authoritarianism #USPol
