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Pro-Israel organisations have thrown their support behind US President Donald Trump's vow to deport students who protested against Israel’s war on Gaza and demanded that universities divest from companies linked to Israel.
Canary Mission and Betar US, two of the most prominent groups, are working closely with the Trump administration by identifying and reporting student protesters. Among the names being shared with the government are those of naturalised US citizens.
“We provided hundreds of names to the Trump administration of visa holders and naturalised Middle Easterners and foreigners who have no free speech in their countries, then come to the West to rage against America and support US-designated terrorist organisations,” Betar spokesman Daniel Levy told The National.
Mr Levy said Betar supports Trump administration initiatives to "keep America safe" and said "America is in deep trouble due to terrorists in our midst".
"We wish that New York City was as safe for Jews as Abu Dhabi," he added. Betar, a Zionist activist group, calls the pro-Palestinian protesters “jihadis”.
When asked whether the US would take action against American citizens whose names are reported by pro-Israel activists, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said she would not discuss diplomatic or strategic conversations.
"What I can tell you … is that if you come into this country [and] you've lied to get in this country, and you've come into this country and have committed crimes … you would never have gotten that visa. And we're going to be very aggressive in the nature of acting on that," Ms Bruce told reporters.
Mr Levy said his group has reason to believe that Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian studying philosophy at Columbia University in New York City, and the award-winning Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha will soon be detained and deported.
Mr Abu Toha, who is in the US on a visa from Syracuse University, said on Friday that he has cancelled all his speaking events because he “felt unsafe travelling, especially after watching students and university professors abducted on the street just in front of other people”.
Tufts graduate Rumeysa Ozturk was also on Betar’s list. She was arrested last week, a year after she co-authored a pro-Palestinian op-ed in a student newspaper and was flagged for anti-Israel activism.
US Representative Dan Goldman, a Democrat and lawyer who served as lead counsel in the first impeachment of Mr Trump, posted on X that Ms Ozturk was “arrested by six masked officers – like the Gestapo”.
“Her only offence appears to be writing an op-ed in her school newspaper. While I strongly disagree with the views expressed in her op-ed, they are not a valid basis for deportation. This is flat-out un-American,” he said.
Before his arrest on March 7, Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil had emailed Katrina Armstrong, the former interim president of Columbia University, urging her to protect international students from deportation threats that he attributed to Betar.
Mr Levy expressed gratitude towards Mr Trump and advocated for “many more deportations,” saying his organisation’s perspectives align with mainstream Zionism and represent the views of the majority of the Zionist and Israeli public.
Betar US is part of Betar, a Zionist youth movement established in 1923 by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who advocated for robust Jewish militarism and territorial expansion. Betar is not the only supporter of Mr Trump's deportation campaign.
Before Mr Khalil's arrest, Canary Mission – an online database launched in 2014 that lists people and groups it claims foster hatred towards the US and Israel – became the first to share a video of him and others taking part in a sit-in at Barnard College in New York.
Canary Mission states on its website that each person and organisation is thoroughly researched and cited. The group publicises names, photos, social media profiles and other personal details of people with whom it disagrees, asserting that its goal is to prevent “today’s radicals from becoming tomorrow’s employees”.
A college instructor, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, told The National that these far-right pro-Israel groups have “gained new importance and new influence under the Trump administration, which is basically just using them to do their hit lists and to compile more lists of people to be deported".
“They also target Jews, like anti-Zionist Jews,” the instructor said. “Many friends of mine have been ‘Canary Missioned’, as they as they refer to it, and quite a few of them are Jewish."
Thomas Watkins contributed to this report in Washington
