President Donald Trump has vowed to deport international students joining the anti-Israel protests, especially on U.S. campuses.
This came after Mr Trump moved to cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathisers on college campuses after signing an executive order to combat anti-Semitism.
In January, the U.S. president signed the executive order entitled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.”
Reuters reported that some groups suggested that the policy could be unconstitutional.
Mr Trump had, during the electioneering, pledged to implement the policy following the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
“I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathisers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” he said during the campaign.
Rights groups and legal scholars have kicked, saying the new measure would violate constitutional free speech.
They also added that the step would likely draw legal challenges.
“The First Amendment protects everyone in the United States, including foreign citizens studying at American universities.
“Deporting non-citizens on the basis of their political speech would be unconstitutional,” said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
The Council on American Islamic Relations, one of the large Muslim advocacy groups, has said it would consider challenging the order in court if Mr Trump tried to implement it.
The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that rolled U.S. college campuses.
