Latest news with #AbedAyoub
Al Jazeera
18 hours ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
Donald Trump's travel ban: Why? And why now?
Washington, DC – Donald Trump's travel ban is the latest instalment in the United States president's anti-immigration push, which plays to his right-wing base, advocates say, stressing that the order is not about public safety. The decree, released late on Wednesday, bars and restricts travellers from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. While Trump has argued that the ban was put in place to protect the US from 'foreign terrorists', many believe the president has other motivations for implementing it. 'The latest travel ban is absolutely part and parcel of the administration's agenda to weaponise immigration laws to target people who are racial and religious minorities and people with whom they disagree,' said Laurie Ball Cooper, vice president for US legal programmes at the International Refugee Assistance Project. Abed Ayoub, executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said that while the administration is presenting the ban as related to vetting travellers, the move aims to 'placate' Trump's supporters. 'It's the 'tough on immigration' stance that this administration has taken on a number of issues since coming into office,' Ayoub told Al Jazeera. Since his inauguration in January, the Trump administration has gutted the US refugee programme, aggressively stepped up deportations and targeted foreign students critical of Israel – in some cases, pushing to remove them from the country. Immigration experts said they had been anticipating the travel ban since Trump signed an executive order in January that paved the way for it. That order directed US officials to compile a list of nations 'for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries'. Trump said in the statement announcing the ban that the targeted countries 'remain deficient with regards to screening and vetting'. This is not the first time Trump has ordered a travel ban. Wednesday's order has several predecessors – multiple iterations of a ban that the US president imposed during his first term as president. One week after taking office in 2017, Trump barred citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, an order that became widely known as the 'Muslim ban'. As a candidate in 2015, he called for 'a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States', and the 2017 proclamation appeared to be a reflection of that proposal. However, there are key differences between the latest order and the one implemented in 2017, which sparked disorder and protests at airports and initially applied to legal permanent residents and people who already had visas. Wednesday's order lists specific exemptions, including for existing visa holders, who will still be able to come to the US using their visas, which will remain valid. Immediate relatives of US citizens will also be able to apply for and obtain visas. Trump has also ordered it to go into effect on Monday – five days after the executive order was signed – whereas the original 'Muslim ban' was implemented immediately and chaotically as soon as he announced it. Moreover, the latest travel ban targets countries with people from different religious backgrounds across four continents, making it difficult to argue religious bias in any court challenge. Also, the early bans of Trump's first term were struck down by federal judges before the Supreme Court eventually upheld the third and last version his administration issued. 'It seems like a lot more thought went into this, a lot more reasoning from their end,' Ayoub said. He added that in some ways, the ban is 'not as bad' as the 2017 one and it will be difficult to challenge. With the courts unlikely to block the order, Ayoub said he hopes the administration will issue more exemptions and work with the targeted countries to take steps that would remove them from the list. Cooper said the impact of the ban will be devastating. For example, the exemption on immediate relatives does not include the parents and children of permanent residents – people who have followed the rules and may have been waiting for years to get their immigration interviews to join their loved ones in the US. 'There are still people on the cusp of reuniting with their families, on the cusp of arriving to safety in the United States who will be cut off from that family reunification and from that access to safety by this travel ban,' Cooper told Al Jazeera. 'Families will be kept apart.' The timing of Wednesday's decree also differs from the original 'Muslim ban'. It came more than five months into Trump's second term. Trump has tied the travel ban to an attack on Sunday that US authorities attributed to an Egyptian asylum seeker. They accused him of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to injure 12 people who were protesting in Boulder, Colorado in support of Israeli captives held in Gaza. However, Egypt is not on the list of banned countries, and when asked why not on Thursday, Trump told reporters that the country is a US ally that has 'things under control'. 'And why now? I can say that it can't come soon enough, frankly,' Trump said. 'We want to keep bad people out of our country. The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people, and we are getting them out one by one.' Cooper said the Trump administration is 'exploiting the tragedy' in Colorado by rolling out the order in its aftermath. 'Ultimately, if you look at the travel ban and the way that it operates, I am not convinced that this is a response to that,' she said. 'But even if it were, even when there is a tragedy, even when something awful happens, punishing groups of people based on their nationality because of what one other person allegedly did is not the right answer.' Cooper added that the order is 'arbitrary', noting that it includes exemptions for athletes competing in next year's World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics but not for students. Some Democrats have accused Trump of imposing the ban now to distract from his issues at home, including an enormous tax bill advancing through Congress and his feud with his former billionaire aide Elon Musk. 'Anytime you ban people coming to the United States from other countries, it has a real impact,' Senator Chris Murphy told MSNBC. 'But it is chiefly in service of trying to get us all talking about that … instead of talking about the centrepiece of this story, which is this bill to make the rich even richer at the expense of everybody else.'
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Students sue University of Texas, Abbott over protest arrests
Multiple current and former students at the University of Texas at Austin have sued the university and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) after the arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters last year. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, accuses the school and governor of violating the students' First Amendment rights and Title VI during the mass arrests on April 24, 2024. The complaint came from four former and current students and was filed by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). It alleges there was an 'arrest quota' and police used excessive tactics such as tackling protesters, leaving marks on students with zip ties and taking the hijab off of a Muslim woman. 'This lawsuit is about more than a single protest; it's about safeguarding two of the most sacred rights in our democracy — free speech and peaceful assembly,' said Abed Ayoub, ADC national executive director. 'Standing beside these courageous students means defending the very pillars of our Constitution and preserving the ideals that define us as Americans. Their bravery in the face of intimidation exemplifies the best of who we are, and this monumental case will help ensure that our fundamental liberties remain strong for generations to come,' Ayoub added. The students are seeking a judgment that the actions of the school and governor were unconstitutional, reverse any disciplinary actions taken against the students and compensation for punitive damages and attorney fees. The Hill has reached out to the university and Abbott's office for comment. Last year's pro-Palestinian protests are getting renewed attention as their international participants are being targeted for deportation by the Trump administration, which accuses the activists of supporting Hamas and posing a threat to U.S. foreign policy. On Wednesday, a judge ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and Palestinian demonstrator who had been arrested at what was supposed to be a naturalization interview. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
01-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Students sue University of Texas, Abbott over protest arrests
Multiple current and former students at the University of Texas, Austin, have sued the university and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) after the arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters last year. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, accuses the school and governor of violating the students' First Amendment rights and Title VI during the mass arrests on April 24, 2024. The complaint came from four former and current students and was filed by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). It alleges there was an 'arrest quota' and police used excessive tactics such as tackling protesters, leaving marks on students with zip ties and taking the hijab off of a Muslim woman. 'This lawsuit is about more than a single protest; it's about safeguarding two of the most sacred rights in our democracy — free speech and peaceful assembly,' said Abed Ayoub, ADC national executive director. 'Standing beside these courageous students means defending the very pillars of our Constitution and preserving the ideals that define us as Americans. Their bravery in the face of intimidation exemplifies the best of who we are, and this monumental case will help ensure that our fundamental liberties remain strong for generations to come,' Ayoub added. The students are seeking a judgement that the actions of the school and governor were unconstitutional, reverse any disciplinary actions taken against the students and compensation for punitive damages and attorney fees. The Hill has reached out to the university and Abbott's office for comment. Last year's pro-Palestinian protests are getting renewed attention as their international participants are being targeted for deportation by the Trump administration, which accuses the activists of supporting Hamas and posing a threat to U.S. foreign policy. On Wednesday, a judge ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and Palestinian demonstrator who had been arrested at what was supposed to be a naturalization interview.
Chicago Tribune
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Private groups work to identify and report student protesters for possible deportation
NEW YORK — When a protester was caught on video in January at a New York rally against Israel, only her eyes were visible between a mask and headscarf. But days later, photos of her entire face, along with her name and employer, were circulated online. 'Months of them hiding their faces went down the drain!' a fledgling technology company boasted in a social media post, claiming its facial-recognition tool had identified the woman despite the coverings. She was anything but a lone target. The same software was also used to review images taken during months of pro-Palestinian marches at U.S. colleges. A right-wing Jewish group said some people identified with the tool were on a list of names it submitted to President Donald Trump's administration, urging that they be deported in accordance with his call for the expulsion of foreign students who participated in 'pro-jihadist' protests. Other pro-Israel groups have enlisted help from supporters on campuses, urging them to report foreign students who participated in protests against the war in Gaza to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. The push to identify masked protesters using facial recognition and turn them in is blurring the line between public law enforcement and private groups. And the efforts have stirred anxiety among foreign students worried that activism could jeopardize their legal status. 'It's a very concerning practice. We don't know who these individuals are or what they're doing with this information,' said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. 'Essentially the administration is outsourcing surveillance.' It's unclear whether names from outside groups have reached top government officials. But concern about the pursuit of activists has risen since the March 8 arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent who helped lead demonstrations against Israel's conduct of the war. Immigration officers also detained a Tufts University student from Turkey outside Boston this week, and Trump and other officials have said that more arrests of international students are coming. 'Now they're using tools of the state to actually go after people,' said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests and spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about losing her visa. 'We suddenly feel like we're being forced to think about our survival.' Uncertainty about the consequences Ayoub said he is concerned, in part, that groups bent on exposing pro-Palestinian activists will make mistakes and single out students who did nothing wrong. Some groups pushing for deportations say their focus is on students whose actions go beyond marching in protests, to those taking over campus buildings and inciting violence against Jewish students. 'If you're here, right, on a student visa causing civil unrest … assaulting people on the streets, chanting for people's death, why the heck did you come to this country?' said Eliyahu Hawila, a software engineer who built the tool designed to identify masked protesters and outed the woman at the January rally. He has forwarded protesters' names to groups pressing for them to be deported, disciplined, fired or otherwise punished. 'If we want to argue that this is freedom of speech and they can say it, fine, they can say it,' Hawila said. 'But that doesn't mean that you will escape the consequences of society after you say it.' Pro-Israel groups that circulated the protester's photo claim that she was soon fired by her employer. An employee who answered the phone at the company confirmed that the woman had not worked there since early this year. In a brief phone conversation, the protester, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, declined to comment on the advice of an attorney. Calls to report students to the government The unearthing and spreading of personal information to harass opponents has become commonplace in the uproar over the war in Gaza. The practice, known as doxing, has been used to expose both activists in the U.S. and Israeli soldiers who recorded video of themselves on the battlefield. But the use of facial-recognition technology by private groups enters territory previously reserved largely for law enforcement, said attorney Sejal Zota, who represents a group of California activists in a lawsuit against facial recognition company ClearviewAI. 'We're focused on government use of facial recognition because that's who we think of as traditionally tracking and monitoring dissent,' Zota said. But 'there are now all of these groups who are sort of complicit in that effort.' The calls to report protesters to immigration authorities have raised the stakes. 'Please tell everyone you know who is at a university to file complaints about foreign students and faculty who support Hamas,' Elizabeth Rand, president of a group called Mothers Against Campus Antisemitism, said in a Jan. 21 post to more than 60,000 followers on Facebook. It included a link to an ICE tip line. Rand's post was one of several publicized by New York University's chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Rand did not respond to messages seeking comment. NYU has dismissed criticism that she had any influence with its administrators. In early February, messages from a different group were posted in an online chat group frequented by Israelis living in New York. 'Do you know students at Columbia or any other university who are here on a study visa and participated in demonstrations against Israel?' one message said in Hebrew. 'If so, now is our time!' An accompanying message in English by the group End Jew Hatred included a link to the ICE hotline. The group did not respond to requests for comment. Facial recognition looms over protests Weeks before Khalil's arrest, a spokesman for right-wing Jewish group Betar said the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities it submitted to officials, including then-incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil's visa. Rubio was asked this week how the names of students targeted for visa revocation were reaching his desk and whether colleges or outside groups were providing information. He declined to answer. 'We're not going to talk about the process by which we're identifying it because obviously we're looking for more people,' he told reporters late Thursday during the return flight from a diplomatic trip to Suriname. In a one-sentence statement, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said the immigration agency is not 'working with' Betar, nor has it received any hotline tips from the group. But DHS declined to answer specific questions from The Associated Press about how it was treating reports from outside groups or the usage of facial recognition. Betar spokesman Daniel Levy said that some people on its list were identified using the facial-recognition tool called NesherAI created by Hawila's company, Stellar Technologies, which was launched from his Brooklyn apartment. The software takes its name from the Hebrew word for 'eagle.' Demonstrating the software for a reporter recently, Hawila paused repeatedly to tweak computer code to account for what he said was the just-completed ingestion of thousands of additional photos scraped from social media accounts. After some delay, the software matched a screenshot of a fully masked protester — seen on video confronting Hawila at a recent march — with publicity photos of a woman who described herself online as a New York artist. He said he would report her to the police for assault. Hawila, a native of Lebanon, is no stranger to controversy. He was the subject of news stories in 2021 when, after marrying an ultra-orthodox woman in New York, he was confronted with accusations that he lied about being Jewish. Religious authorities have since confirmed that his mother was Jewish and certified his faith, he said. Hawila said he no longer works directly with Betar but continues to share protesters' names with it and other pro-Israel groups and said he has discussed licensing his software to some of them. He showed an email exchange with one group that appeared to confirm such contact. 'Technology, when used in good ways, makes the world a better place,' he said. Trump promised to crack down during campaign As a candidate, Trump campaigned on a promise to crack down on campus antisemitism and threatened to deport activists with student visas that he called violent radicals. Soon after the election, Betar claimed on social media that it was working to identify and report international student protesters to the incoming administration. 'Entire university departments have been corrupted by jihadis,' Levy said in a recent e-mail exchange with the AP. Days before his arrest, Khalil said in an interview that he was aware of Betar's call for his deportation and that it and other groups were trying to use him as a 'scapegoat.' Students protesting Israel's conduct in Gaza have been unsure what to make of Betar, which the Anti-Defamation League recently added to its list of extremist groups. The ADL has also voiced support for revoking the visas of foreign student activists. At the University of Pittsburgh, leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine said they spoke with police in November after an online message from Betar that said it would be visiting the school to 'give you beepers' — an apparent reference to Israel's detonation of thousands of electronic pagers last fall to kill and wound members of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia. Ross Glick, who was Betar's executive director at the time, said that the message was 'a tongue-in-cheek dark joke,' not a threat. Both sides said police eventually decided no action was warranted. Months later, Betar said that Pitt students were among those on its deportation list. Students dependent on visas fear being targeted The efforts to target protesters have fueled anxiety among international students involved in campus activism. 'They've abducted someone on our campus, and that is a key source of our fear,' said the Columbia student from South Asia. She recounted cancelling spring break plans to travel to Canada, where her husband lives, for fear she would not be allowed to reenter the U.S. She has also shut down her social media accounts to avoid drawing attention to pro-Palestinian posts. And, because her apartment is off campus, she said she offered accommodation to other international students who live in university housing and are wary of visits by immigration officers. Leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at George Washington University and Pittsburgh said some international students have asked to have their email addresses and names removed from membership lists to avoid scrutiny. A Columbia graduate student from the United Kingdom said that when he joined a pro-Palestinian encampment last year, he never considered whether it might affect his immigration status. Now he's rethinking an incident in October, when someone scattered fliers in a campus lounge celebrating the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war. A classmate who supports Israel accused him and others in the room of being responsible for the fliers and snapped their photos, according to the student, who said he had nothing to do with the material distributed. 'My main worry … is that he shared those photos and identified us and shared it with a larger group of people,' the student said. Other students have been dismayed by an atmosphere that encourages students to inform on their classmates. 'It really bothered me because this cultivates this environment of reporting on each other. It kind of gives memories of dictatorship and autocratic regimes,' said Sahar Bostock, who was among a group of Israeli students at Columbia who wrote an open letter criticizing efforts to report pro-Palestinian protesters. 'I had to say, 'Do you think this is right?'' Originally Published: March 29, 2025 at 3:58 PM CDT
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Private groups work to identify and report student protesters for possible deportation
NEW YORK (AP) — When a protester was caught on video in January at a New York rally against Israel, only her eyes were visible between a mask and headscarf. But days later, photos of her entire face, along with her name and employer, were circulated online. 'Months of them hiding their faces went down the drain!' a fledgling technology company boasted in a social media post, claiming its facial-recognition tool had identified the woman despite the coverings. She was anything but a lone target. The same software was also used to review images taken during months of pro-Palestinian marches at U.S. colleges. A right-wing Jewish group said some people identified with the tool were on a list of names it submitted to President Donald Trump's administration, urging that they be deported in accordance with his call for the expulsion of foreign students who participated in 'pro-jihadist' protests. Other pro-Israel groups have enlisted help from supporters on campuses, urging them to report foreign students who participated in protests against the war in Gaza to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. The push to identify masked protesters using facial recognition and turn them in is blurring the line between public law enforcement and private groups. And the efforts have stirred anxiety among foreign students worried that activism could jeopardize their legal status. 'It's a very concerning practice. We don't know who these individuals are or what they're doing with this information,' said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. 'Essentially the administration is outsourcing surveillance.' It's unclear whether names from outside groups have reached top government officials. But concern about the pursuit of activists has risen since the March 8 arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent who helped lead demonstrations against Israel's conduct of the war. Immigration officers also detained a Tufts University student from Turkey outside Boston this week, and Trump and other officials have said that more arrests of international students are coming. 'Now they're using tools of the state to actually go after people,' said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests and spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about losing her visa. 'We suddenly feel like we're being forced to think about our survival.' Uncertainty about the consequences Ayoub said he is concerned, in part, that groups bent on exposing pro-Palestinian activists will make mistakes and single out students who did nothing wrong. Some groups pushing for deportations say their focus is on students whose actions go beyond marching in protests, to those taking over campus buildings and inciting violence against Jewish students. 'If you're here, right, on a student visa causing civil unrest ... assaulting people on the streets, chanting for people's death, why the heck did you come to this country?' said Eliyahu Hawila, a software engineer who built the tool designed to identify masked protesters and outed the woman at the January rally. He has forwarded protesters' names to groups pressing for them to be deported, disciplined, fired or otherwise punished. 'If we want to argue that this is freedom of speech and they can say it, fine, they can say it,' Hawila said. 'But that doesn't mean that you will escape the consequences of society after you say it.' Pro-Israel groups that circulated the protester's photo claim that she was soon fired by her employer. An employee who answered the phone at the company confirmed that the woman had not worked there since early this year. In a brief phone conversation, the protester, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, declined to comment on the advice of an attorney. Calls to report students to the government The unearthing and spreading of personal information to harass opponents has become commonplace in the uproar over the war in Gaza. The practice, known as doxing, has been used to expose both activists in the U.S. and Israeli soldiers who recorded video of themselves on the battlefield. But the use of facial-recognition technology by private groups enters territory previously reserved largely for law enforcement, said attorney Sejal Zota, who represents a group of California activists in a lawsuit against facial recognition company ClearviewAI. 'We're focused on government use of facial recognition because that's who we think of as traditionally tracking and monitoring dissent,' Zota said. But 'there are now all of these groups who are sort of complicit in that effort.' The calls to report protesters to immigration authorities have raised the stakes. 'Please tell everyone you know who is at a university to file complaints about foreign students and faculty who support Hamas,' Elizabeth Rand, president of a group called Mothers Against Campus Antisemitism, said in a Jan. 21 post to more than 60,000 followers on Facebook. It included a link to an ICE tip line. Rand's post was one of several publicized by New York University's chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Rand did not respond to messages seeking comment. NYU has dismissed criticism that she had any influence with its administrators. In early February, messages from a different group were posted in an online chat group frequented by Israelis living in New York. 'Do you know students at Columbia or any other university who are here on a study visa and participated in demonstrations against Israel?' one message said in Hebrew. 'If so, now is our time!' An accompanying message in English by the group End Jew Hatred included a link to the ICE hotline. The group did not respond to requests for comment. Facial recognition looms over protests Weeks before Khalil's arrest, a spokesman for right-wing Jewish group Betar said the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities it submitted to officials, including then-incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil's visa. Rubio was asked this week how the names of students targeted for visa revocation were reaching his desk and whether colleges or outside groups were providing information. He declined to answer. 'We're not going to talk about the process by which we're identifying it because obviously we're looking for more people,' he told reporters late Thursday during the return flight from a diplomatic trip to Suriname. In a one-sentence statement, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said the immigration agency is not 'working with' Betar, nor has it received any hotline tips from the group. But DHS declined to answer specific questions from The Associated Press about how it was treating reports from outside groups or the usage of facial recognition. Betar spokesman Daniel Levy said that some people on its list were identified using the facial-recognition tool called NesherAI created by Hawila's company, Stellar Technologies, which was launched from his Brooklyn apartment. The software takes its name from the Hebrew word for 'eagle.' Demonstrating the software for a reporter recently, Hawila paused repeatedly to tweak computer code to account for what he said was the just-completed ingestion of thousands of additional photos scraped from social media accounts. After some delay, the software matched a screenshot of a fully masked protester — seen on video confronting Hawila at a recent march — with publicity photos of a woman who described herself online as a New York artist. He said he would report her to the police for assault. Hawila, a native of Lebanon, is no stranger to controversy. He was the subject of news stories in 2021 when, after marrying an ultra-orthodox woman in New York, he was confronted with accusations that he lied about being Jewish. Religious authorities have since confirmed that his mother was Jewish and certified his faith, he said. Hawila said he no longer works directly with Betar but continues to share protesters' names with it and other pro-Israel groups and said he has discussed licensing his software to some of them. He showed an email exchange with one group that appeared to confirm such contact. 'Technology, when used in good ways, makes the world a better place,' he said. Trump promised to crack down during campaign As a candidate, Trump campaigned on a promise to crack down on campus antisemitism and threatened to deport activists with student visas that he called violent radicals. Soon after the election, Betar claimed on social media that it was working to identify and report international student protesters to the incoming administration. 'Entire university departments have been corrupted by jihadis,' Levy said in a recent e-mail exchange with the AP. Days before his arrest, Khalil said in an interview that he was aware of Betar's call for his deportation and that it and other groups were trying to use him as a 'scapegoat.' Students protesting Israel's conduct in Gaza have been unsure what to make of Betar, which the Anti-Defamation League recently added to its list of extremist groups. The ADL has also voiced support for revoking the visas of foreign student activists. At the University of Pittsburgh, leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine said they spoke with police in November after an online message from Betar that said it would be visiting the school to 'give you beepers' — an apparent reference to Israel's detonation of thousands of electronic pagers last fall to kill and wound members of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia. Ross Glick, who was Betar's executive director at the time, said that the message was 'a tongue-in-cheek dark joke,' not a threat. Both sides said police eventually decided no action was warranted. Months later, Betar said that Pitt students were among those on its deportation list. Students dependent on visas fear being targeted The efforts to target protesters have fueled anxiety among international students involved in campus activism. 'They've abducted someone on our campus, and that is a key source of our fear,' said the Columbia student from South Asia. She recounted cancelling spring break plans to travel to Canada, where her husband lives, for fear she would not be allowed to reenter the U.S. She has also shut down her social media accounts to avoid drawing attention to pro-Palestinian posts. And, because her apartment is off campus, she said she offered accommodation to other international students who live in university housing and are wary of visits by immigration officers. Leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at George Washington University and Pittsburgh said some international students have asked to have their email addresses and names removed from membership lists to avoid scrutiny. A Columbia graduate student from the United Kingdom said that when he joined a pro-Palestinian encampment last year, he never considered whether it might affect his immigration status. Now he's rethinking an incident in October, when someone scattered fliers in a campus lounge celebrating the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war. A classmate who supports Israel accused him and others in the room of being responsible for the fliers and snapped their photos, according to the student, who said he had nothing to do with the material distributed. 'My main worry … is that he shared those photos and identified us and shared it with a larger group of people,' the student said. Other students have been dismayed by an atmosphere that encourages students to inform on their classmates. 'It really bothered me because this cultivates this environment of reporting on each other. It kind of gives memories of dictatorship and autocratic regimes,' said Sahar Bostock, who was among a group of Israeli students at Columbia who wrote an open letter criticizing efforts to report pro-Palestinian protesters. 'I had to say, 'Do you think this is right?'' ___ Associated Press reporters Jake Offenhartz and Noreen Nasir in New York and Matthew Lee in Miami contributed to this report.
