Trump Flip Flops on the First Amendment with Student Deportations
Cancel Culture is Taken to a New Extreme in the Trump Era
The first seventy nine of the Trump administration have largely been a pleasant surprise. At last, there is leadership in the White House instead of a dementia patient. The fact that our intelligence agencies, as reported by The New York Times, believed a nuclear strike in Ukraine had coin-flip odds during Biden’s presidency is rather sobering. Thanks to Trump’s leadership and his bias toward action, many of the promises he made on the campaign trail have been kept.
The border has been closed, and mass deportations—necessary due to the reckless open-border policy of the Biden administration—are underway. The federal government has been directed to end the funding, sponsoring, promotion, assistance, or support of the chemical mutilation of children, a policy that even EU countries like Britain have already enacted into law. Women’s sports are being restored as a safe space for women. The permanent bureaucracy in Washington, with all its excess, is finally being scrutinized. I shouldn’t fail to mention the ongoing cultural shift and the broadening of the Overton Window in the United States following Trump’s election. The era of walking on egg shells in-person and online is over. However, since the beginning of March, the Trump administration has worked to inhibit our ability to criticize a certain nation, which conflicts with my principles and the primary reason I voted for Trump.
I voted for Trump in 2024 primarily to protect free speech. After witnessing what the security state and Biden administration had censored during the 2020 election and Covid-19, a vote for Kamala Harris and the establishment felt like a step toward the corporate censorship regime imposed in the EU by the Digital Services Act. Following Trump’s election, it seemed the US would become the last bastion of free speech and thought in the Western world. Trump had touted his love of free speech and the First Amendment at many rallies and, on his first day in office, signed an executive order titled 'Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.' However, the recent deportations of Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and others spit in the face of the First Amendment.
Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident and green card holder, was detained by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents at a residential building on Columbia University’s campus on Saturday, March 6, 2025. At the time he was detained, he was with his wife, who was eight months pregnant. Khalil’s wife reported that the plainclothes DHS agents initially failed to identify themselves and threatened that if she stayed with Mahmoud, she too would be detained. This action not only wasted resources the government needs to enact the mass deportation of illegal immigrants Trump promised and the MAGA base expects, but also poses a clear threat to our First Amendment rights.
Mahmoud Khalil was one of the lead negotiators for the pro-Palestine protesters at the 2024 Gaza solidarity encampment. He wasn’t charged with any crimes, and there’s no evidence he was involved in the abhorrent acts committed by some pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University. Yet, the Trump administration intends to deport him. The administration initially justified his detention and deportation by invoking a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the Secretary of State to deport noncitizens whose presence is deemed to have 'potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.' Based on this provision, Mahmoud’s story, and Trump’s Truth Social post on March 10, 2025, it seems clear that he is being deported for criticizing Israel and its actions in Gaza.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national who attended Tufts University, was detained by plain-clothed ICE officials on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, while on her way to meet friends for iftar, the meal that breaks the fast at sunset during Ramadan. The F-1 student visa she had obtained to attend Tufts was revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who alleged that she 'engaged in activities in support of Hamas.' You can see Secretary Rubio defend the revocation of her student visa below.
He argues that the United States wouldn’t accept visa requests from students whose reasoning on there application is, “[They] want to participate in movements involved in activities such as vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, and creating a ruckus.” Marco states we wouldn’t let them into the country in the first place with this reasoning and therefore we can revoke visas from students who engage in these actions. However, there is no evidence that Rumeysa engaged in such activities, nor has she been accused of committing any crimes. The only reason behind her deportation anyone can find is that she was one of four authors of a March 2024 op-ed in The Tufts Daily arguing that the university’s response to Tufts Community Union Senate resolutions regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict was insufficient.
Many students are in the same boat as Mahmoud and Rumseya as Marco Rubio stated at a press conference in Guyana on the number of visas revoked so far, “It might be more than 300 at this point . We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.” Based on the recent deportations to El Salvador’s notorious prison that occurred without due process it feels unlikely we’ll get specific allegations for each of these students.
As it stands right now we don’t have clarity on what constitutes “activities in support of Hamas.” It seems to be based on the current evidence from the detainees stories that being “in support of Hamas,” means you’ve spoke out against Israel and its actions towards the Palestinians. This argument feels like the warmonger rhetoric used in the Bush era. Back then, if you were against the invasion of Iraq you were Pro-Saddam. These actions clearly are a broad attack on free speech in service of protecting Israel and its destruction of Gaza.
I should note Trump’s platform did say he would deport Pro-Hamas radicals, but I misinterpreted this to mean only a few people who committed the more outrageous actions of harassment, assault, and vandalism conducted at the Pro-Palestinian protest would be deported. Instead, it seems anyone with non-citizenship status is at risk of being deported for speaking out against Israel. How is deporting legal permanent residents and foreign students with student visas for speaking out against Israel America First? Had these individuals spoken out against a different ally of ours or the US would they be headed towards deportation? I am doubtful they would be. Given the Supreme Court has ruled that the bill of rights and therefore free speech applies to citizens, legal residents, and people with student visas these actions are rather troublesome.
I keep thinking if the shoe was on the other foot in this situation, the right and all of MAGA would react rather differently. Say Jordan Peterson or Gad Saad, two Canadian intellectuals, that were critical of the Biden administration were deported by the past administration. The right would be up in arms over it. It would be the news story on 𝕏 for a week and Elon would be quote tweeting all the usual suspects in protest of these actions. Yet only a proportion of America First supporters have spoken out against these deportations.
The actions taken by the Trump administration feel like a new version of cancel culture that has been taken to a new extreme. Instead of a twitter mob cancelling you, you’re being cancelled and removed by the US Federal Government. You’re being picked up off the street by plain-clothed ICE and DHS agents, basically being kidnapped. These actions along with Trump’s executive order 14188, titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” which pushes the idea that anti-semitism under the civil rights act should be based off of the IHRA definition of anti-semitism, a definition that includes certain criticisms of Israel is the most kowtowing thing the US has done for Israel since the Iraq war. It also seems likely these action will only increase anti-semitism across the States. Stoking the fire of those who believe Israel holds too much influence over US politics through AIPAC and billionaire donors like Miriam Adelson. These deportations go against the values Trump ran on and are only going to push many who identify with MAGA to question our allyship with Israel. This isn’t America First