When President Donald Trump issued an executive order threatening to deport international students involved in pro-Palestine protests, advocates expressed immediate concern that the move would target demonstrators — particularly Muslim and Arab students — for engaging in activity protected by the First Amendment.

Some members of the Columbia University community, however, leapt at the chance to get young people they claim are “supporters of Hamas” detained and deported. Several people on a large WhatsApp group, Columbia Alumni for Israel — which counts over 1,000 members, including parents, at least one current student, and Columbia professors — welcomed Trump’s plan.

Deporting Gaza protesters was already a topic of conversation in the Columbia Alumni for Israel group before Trump’s order came down. On the president’s first day in office, group members shared flyers advertising a pro-Palestine January 21 walkout to push the school to drop disciplinary actions against anti-war protesters.

“Identifying the Columbia student-Hamas-sympathizers who show up is key to deporting those with student visas,” former Columbia’s Teachers College assistant professor Lynne Bursky-Tammam said in the chat, according to screenshots from the WhatsApp group obtained by The Intercept.

“Arresting them for hate crimes is not enough. We have to get rid of them.”

Victor Muslin, another alumnus and pro-Israel activist, responded: “If there are photos of someone who needs to be identified (even with a partially obscured face) I have access to tech that may be able to help. DM me.”

Within a few days another member posted a link to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line and wrote, “Let’s get to work.”

In late January, a group member shared an article about students who spray-painted a building and put cement in a sewage line to protest the anniversary of Israel’s killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab. Bursky-Tammam responded to the article and questioned who was funding the protesters, adding, “Arresting them for hate crimes is not enough. We have to get rid of them.” (Bursky-Tammam declined to comment.)

The activities of the chat group, which formed in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack, come amid a wider campaign to crack down on dissent over Israel’s war on Gaza. The school has disciplined and suspended protesters — helping to create an environment that has fomented attacks using the courts, among other tactics. Members of the pro-Israel WhatsApp group, whose identities were confirmed by The Intercept using their phone numbers, were of a piece with these efforts, discussing how to report people to law enforcement, including the FBI.

With Trump taking the Oval Office, right-wing pro-Israel activists have focused their energy on using his draconian immigration policies to deal with Israel’s critics, including efforts to paint international student protesters as terrorists to have their visas revoked.

“It’s very disturbing that the alumni and parents are doing this,” said Abed Ayoub, executive director of the civil rights group the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Really, it’s an across-the-board attempt to silence and take away the First Amendment right of people simply because they don’t agree with them. It’s a very dangerous precedent.”

Critics of the school’s policies toward protesters say Columbia administrators have done little to intervene with attacks on students and faculty. On Thursday, two Columbia professors wrote an op-ed demanding that the school to condemn calls to deport its students.

“The Palestine exception to the First Amendment, to our right to free speech, has been something that’s been ongoing for so many years,” said Sabiya Ahamed, a staff attorney at the civil liberties group Palestine Legal, which filed a complaint about anti-Palestinian discrimination at Columbia that led to a federal investigation.

“This targeting........

© The Intercept