AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

As President Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House today, we turn to an executive order Trump signed last week to combat, he said, antisemitism, that has sent a chill across campuses. In a White House fact sheet accompanying the executive order, Trump threatened to deport noncitizen college students and other international visitors who take part in pro-Palestinian protests. Trump said, quote, “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. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump said.

The executive order promises to, quote, “marshal all federal resources” to combat what it called “the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets,” unquote, since October 7, 2023. It calls on the secretary of education to provide an inventory and analysis of all court cases involving antisemitism at colleges, universities and K-through-12 schools within 60 days. The order requires colleges and universities to, quote, “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff” that could be considered antisemitic or supportive of terrorism, potentially leading to their deportation.

In response to Israel’s 16-month military assault on Gaza, campuses across the U.S. erupted in an unprecedented wave of pro-Palestinian protests in solidarity with Gaza. University administrations responded with a harsh crackdown. At least 3,000 people were arrested or detained during the height of the protests last year.

Rights groups and legal scholars say the new executive order violates constitutional free speech rights and would likely draw legal challenges if implemented.

For more on this executive order, we’re going to two guests. In Ithaca, New York, Momodou Taal is with us, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University. Last year, Cornell suspended him for taking part in a campus protest calling on Cornell to divest from Israel. He faced deportation until Cornell allowed him to reenroll after massive protest, thereby extending his visa. And Etan Nechin is with us, the New York correspondent for Haaretz, where his recent piece is headlined “’We Will Find You, and We Will Deport You’: Why Trump’s Executive Order on Antisemitism Is So Dangerous.” Etan Nechin joins us from Washington, D.C., where he’s covering protests of Netanyahu today at the White House.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Etan, let’s begin with you. Why do you say that Trump’s antisemitism executive order worries progressive Jewish groups, delights others? And you write that it is a major problem that he’s threatening to deport students. As an Israeli, you write this.

ETAN NECHIN: Good morning, Amy. Good to be on.

Well, this is dangerous not only for crushing dissent, but it’s a deflection from what’s going on in Israel and Palestine, right? So, when you focus on students who are pro-Palestinian, who some, you know, said egregious things, it’s all free speech. When you create an atmosphere that any dissent could be punished by deportation, that sends a chilling effect not only on foreign students but on anyone who dares to criticize Israel, the administration. And this creates an atmosphere that we have seen from authoritarian regimes, right? So, this is basically a textbook authoritarian playbook meant to just stifle any criticism of what’s going on in Israel.

And more so, this with his campaign promise last year, and we’ve seen it already being implemented even before. Right-wing Jewish group Betar has already used AI to scrape social media to make lists of names of what they called “Hamas supporters.” This group just now recently attacked writer Peter Beinart for his new book about criticism of Israel. Peter Beinart is not a Hamas supporter, obviously. So, this just shows the line of — you know, between free speech and a crackdown.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And who runs this Betar Movement, and how did it arise?

ETAN NECHIN: Betar US is part of Betar Movement, which is founded in the 1920s by Jabotinsky, a very right-wing Zionist. And they have branches all over the world. So this is their U.S. branch.

Also, there have been messaging on Jewish and Israeli text groups urging people to complain about anybody who’s “supporting Hamas.” Again, the language in this order is so murky, what it means to be supportive of Hamas. Is it to wave a Palestinian flag? Because a lot of Israelis in protests have done so. Is it saying that, you know, if somebody was at the right age, they would join a resistance movement? Because that’s what Ehud Barak said, former prime minister, during his campaign in 1999. This is not justifying what Hamas did on October 7th, not at all. But this is the line between free speech and crackdown authoritarianism. This is the aim, and this is the goal.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther, which claims —

ETAN NECHIN: Yes.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — that a pro-Palestinian movement — that the pro-Palestinian movement here is a part of a global Hamas support network. They issued a 33-page document that’s suggesting revoking tax-exempt status for universities who host pro-Palestinian protests. What’s your reaction? And is that even feasible?

ETAN NECHIN: Right. This is — you know, Project Esther is part of Project 2025, which aims, again, to — in very vague language — crack down on anybody who criticizes Israel as, you know, a terrorist supporter. And this is part of the administration’s and the GOP’s plan to crack down on nonprofits. And we’ve seen that last session, where they tried to pass a bill, you know, basically gutting funding for nonprofits who support terrorism, or whatever that language is, a bill that will be taken on this session.

So, this is part of a big crackdown on nonprofits and any human rights, speech rights and migrant rights. We’ve seen this across the board. Project Esther is one of the projects of 2025, which centers around migration, centers around attacking of minorities, on dissent, on the left. And we’ve seen this. We’ve seen this after 9/11, obviously, when protesters against the Iraq War were monitored as supporting al-Qaeda, right? The FBI had files and files on people and nonprofits to try and stifle any dissent. This is part of the same playbook.

What’s more dangerous at this moment is Project 2025 and Elon Musk. I don’t think there has been in the, you know, recent history such a tie between the government and a billionaire oligarch that basically has a run on the government and can do, you know, his will, and where we’ve been seeing that since day one.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Etan Nechin, who is the New York correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He’s in Washington, D.C., today to cover the protests against Netanyahu. It’s his first visit to the United States, to the White House, since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him for crimes against humanity. There were two other presidents who came to the inauguration, Noboa of Ecuador and the right-wing president of Argentina, Milei. But this is the first official White House visit that Trump is having, Netanyahu. They’re close personal friends.

We’re also joined by Momodou Taal, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University, almost deported last year after being temporarily suspended for his pro-Palestine activism. [Momodou], if you can talk about what happened to you? We would report your story in headlines. There was tremendous outcry and pressure on Cornell to remove the suspension so you wouldn’t be deported. Explain what happened.

MOMODOU TAAL: Yes, so, we partook in a protest at Statler Hotel on Cornell’s campus. And in that careers fair, which was taking place in the Statler Hotel, there was Boeing and L3Harris, who are targets of our divestment campaign, because we know that L3Harris and Boeing are directly involved in shipments and armaments of Israelis’ genocide against the Palestinian people. We eventually brought the careers fair to a standstill. And about a few days later, I was told that I was suspended. And someone on the F-1 visa being suspended means that you lose your student status, which triggers the loss of your visa, effectively being deported, being asked to leave the country. I was told in that meeting that I would have about 48 hours to leave the country.

With, as you said, public pressure, support, Cornell University backed down, and I am allowed to finish my degree. However, I am still banned from campus. I’m allowed in one building on campus to work. I had to fight to be able to get library access. And I think there’s somewhat of a great irony that students who were protesting apartheid are now subject to forms of exclusion bordering on apartheid, with our movements restricted, and we’re only allowed to go to designated places on campus.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how has your work as a graduate student continued to be affected since the university rescinded your suspension?

MOMODOU TAAL: It continues to be impacted, because, first and foremost, I’m excluded from campus life. I was teaching a class to undergrads, which was — I’m effectively banned from teaching. My class was taken away from me, which everyone knows is a huge part of progression with your degree. My movements remain restricted. I had to fight, as I’ve said, to be able to use the library, to have work from the library — right? — to be able to go onto campus and to use certain access of certain parts of campus. Right now, as I said, I’m still only allowed in one building on campus. To demonstrate the egregious nature of this, I had to even fight with the university to say, if I use Cornell Health, go to see a doctor, initially I was told I have to inform them every single time I have a doctor’s appointment to be allowed onto campus.

AMY GOODMAN: Momodou, can you respond to Trump’s executive order, as he talks about alien students being deported, your colleagues at Cornell and other places that you’re hearing from, what kind of effect that this has had? And also, I mean, you were born in Gambia. You’re a British citizen. Why you support the Palestinians and were involved in those protests?

MOMODOU TAAL: Thanks for both those questions. For the first one, of course, the executive orders, the language in which — the framing and the language of the executive orders clearly are targeting pro-Palestinians protesters, international students. And I think they’re intended to have a chilling effect on Palestinian protests, pro-Palestinian protesters, in order for them to stop protesting at the threat of deportation. The message that is being sent out is, if you are an international student who comes here legally, then you should not be involved in exercising your First Amendment right, or you will be subject to deportation. And that is the intended effect. I don’t think it’s going to work. I think, if anything, when fascism is at the door, what we do is come together and unite even stronger.

However, as for your second question, I think, fundamentally, yes, I’m Gambian. Yes, I’m British. But fundamentally, I’m a human being. And I think what Palestine does, when we say Palestine is a litmus test, we’re saying that it is not that we privilege the Palestinian cause over every other cause, but rather Palestine holds a mirror up unto the world and says, “What kind of world do we want to live in? Do you want to live in a world in which every single international, multilateral institution is rubbished? Do you want to live in a world where the ICC and the ICJ are rendered defunct, and the U.N. rendered defunct, and there’s no such thing as an international cooperation of a world, and people are able to do — and leaders are able to act in any way they see fit, and kill women and children and men and boys, and enact genocide?” So, I think, fundamentally, why I get involved is because I’m a human being.

And finally, I will end with, the university was presented with a crossroad. That crossroad: Will they protect their students? They failed initially by suspending so many people. Again, now with Trump’s presidency, the university is presented with another crossroad. And I’m calling on the university to not just be a bystander, but take an active position, an active role to defend their students and say, ’We’re not going to allow Trump and the right-wing fascists and outside agencies to come onto campuses and collect foreign students.”

AMY GOODMAN: Momodou, we have to leave it there. Momodou Taal was threatened with deportation — that was during the Biden administration — and now faces this executive order by Trump. And I want to thank Etan Nechin. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.