Resistance is building against President Donald Trump’s Jan. 30 executive order to cancel the student visas of Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.
The Exponent, Purdue University’s student newspaper, announced on Feb. 3 that they are taking measures to protect the identities of pro-Palestinian students in response to the order, stating, “refuses to be party to such a blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of potentially hundreds of Purdue students.”
The editorial board wrote, “To protect the identities of pro-Palestinian students, we are removing the names, images, and likenesses of every such student from our website published since Oct. 7, 2023. No such information or images will be published online or in print by the Exponent until this autocratic attack on free speech is overturned.”
Trump’s Executive Order 13899 targets the rise of anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence against citizens, especially in schools and campuses, following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel.
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The editorial board at the Exponent, Purdue University’s student newspaper, said it “refuses to be party to such a blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of potentially hundreds of Purdue students.” (Michael Hickey)
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” the president said in a Jan. 30 fact sheet on the executive order. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
“I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.”
Hamas is classified as a terrorist group, and according to the Department of National Intelligence (DNI), it is the largest and most capable militant organization in the Palestinian territories.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu answer questions during a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Feb. 4, 2025. ( Reuters/Leah Millis)
“HAMAS is committed to armed resistance against Israel and to the creation of a Palestinian state, and the group has engaged in several rounds of violent conflict with Israel,” according to DNI. “The most recent began on 7 October 2023, when HAMAS launched a massive surprise attack against Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people.”
The Exponent’s editorial board emphasized no distinction should be made between “‘pro-jihadist’ and pro-Palestinian” in the cancellation of student visas.
“Anti-war can only now mean ‘pro-Hamas,’” the student board wrote.
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An anti-Israel agitator on Stanford University’s campus on Friday, April 26, 2024. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
“Such twisting of language to be used as a weapon is contrary to the First Amendment, which gives the Exponent its right to exist just as much as it gives the right to students to protest as they see fit. It is the opinion of the Exponent that standing back while our website is potentially used to identify the state’s enemies would be directly against those principles,” the board continued.
The board added that pro-Palestine protests at Purdue will continue into 2025, but the students they interview at protests “will no longer have their identities published.”
A pro-Palestinian demonstrator holds a flag on the rooftop of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University in New York, on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Hamas and Israel’s recent ceasefire has led to the release of hostages and national prisoners, but six Americans remain in Gaza.
More than 46,000 Palestinians died in the war, with over 90% of Gaza’s population displaced.
Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
