Our Name - Liberal Jews say antisemitism is being misused. The truth is more complicated.

IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS, federal agents have targeted nearly a dozen foreign-born students and faculty members, many of whom have criticized Israel or participated in campus protests against its brutal siege on Gaza. Meanwhile, the State Department—using AI to scan social media for evidence of pro-Hamas sentiments—has revoked some 300 visas, relying on a 1952 law originally conceived, in part, to deport “communists.”

- Sam Adler-Bell

At the same time, the White House has threatened to revoke billions in federal grants to universities accused of “fail[ing] to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination” and strong-armed white-shoe law firms to join pro bono litigation to “combat antisemitism,” among other things. After detaining Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who served as an intermediary between activists and administrators during protests last spring, President Trump wrote on Truth Social, “This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students ... who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity ... We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country—never to return again.” Ten days into his term, he ordered executive agencies to “marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of anti-Semitism” and the DoJ to “investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism.” It’s not funny, but it sounds like a joke: Why did fascism come to America in 2025? To protect the Jews.

Khalil, a green-card holder married to a U.S. citizen, has been detained since at least March 11 in a Louisiana facility that has been described by immigration lawyers as a “black hole”; detainees sleep on metal bunk beds 50 to a room. Another target, Columbia undergraduate Yunseo Chung, who has lived in the U.S. since age 7, went into hiding. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University, was abducted from a Somerville, Massachusetts, street by plain-clothes ICE agents. Her crime: co-authoring an op-ed for the Tufts Daily newspaper calling on the administration to respond to student demands. They are being punished for political speech explicitly. “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “not to become a social activist.”