Schools, colleges that allow illegal protests will lose funding: Trump
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Trump's threat is another one of his measures to cull pro-Palestine protests, as he claims his efforts are combating "anti-Semitism."
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President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 3, 2025 (AP)
Schools and colleges that allow illegal protests will face the withdrawal of federal funding, US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday in a post on his social media.
"All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested," Trump's post on Truth Social read.
This decision comes amid Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestine protests and demonstrations, which took over United States universities during Israel's war on Gaza.
Zionist group tips off Trump
An American-Zionist group, the World Betar Movement, reportedly compiled a list of international students on visas who participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations on U.S. university campuses to send to the Trump administration for deportation, according to The New York Post on January 25.
The list included the names of 30 students from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Canada, and the United Kingdom, enrolled in top U.S. universities such as Columbia, UPenn, Michigan, Syracuse, and UCLA, using face-recognition and database technologies to compile the list.
Ross Glick, director of Betar's U.S. chapter, accused pro-Palestine students of anti-Semitism and stated that they have a list of "Jew-hating foreign nationals on visas who support Hamas."
The US President Trump signed an executive order on January 29 targeting pro-Palestinian protestors by authorizing the US government to utilize "all available and appropriate legal tools to combat anti-Semitism, including prosecuting and deporting those accused of anti-Semitic harassment."
The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce demanded on February 14 that Columbia University submit disciplinary records by the end of the month for students involved in anti-"Israel" protests between April and January 2024, criticizing the Ivy League institution's handling of the matter.
A WhatsApp group called Columbia Alumni for Israel, consisting of over 1,000 members, including alumni, parents, at least one current student, and faculty, has been working to identify pro-Palestine student protesters for possible deportation The Intercept reported on February 16.
Trump had previously vowed on May 14 to deport all pro-Palestine protestors in a meeting with donors, "One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave," he said according to The Washington Post.
