Cal community on high alert after Trump threatens to deport pro-Palestinian protesters to ‘combat antisemitism’

Graduating students in caps and gowns protesting the war on Gaza gather on a section of the Memorial Stadium in the middle of the commencement ceremony. The protest, which grew in size as students converged in the bleachers, managed to interrupt some of the speeches. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight

The Trump administration’s threat to deport noncitizens who have participated in demonstrations against the war in Gaza and to cancel their student visas has disturbed faculty and students in Berkeley, who are calling on UC Berkeley not to cooperate.

“The community is really rocked by this,” said Halle Young, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley who is also a member of the Bay Area chapter of the Jewish-Palestine solidarity organization Jewish Voice for Peace. “We’re wanting to stand together. This targets students who are vulnerable.”

At the end of January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order promising to “combat antisemitism,” including by prompting universities to report the “activities” of noncitizen staff or students that could lead to their deportation. It cites federal law that bans noncitizens from being in the country if they support terrorism.

“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,” Trump says in a fact sheet issued by the White House on Jan. 30. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

Department of Education officials also announced that they would open new investigations into antisemitism at five U.S. universities, including UC Berkeley.

The actions follow a year in which thousands of students in the U.S. protested Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza by demonstrating on their college campuses. Students across California — many of whom set up tent encampments or other displays across campus as part of their protests — were detained or arrested.

All these schools should be doing everything in their power to protect these students.” 

HALLE YOUNG, UC BERKELEY DOCTORAL STUDENT

Students are calling on the university to resist the Trump administration’s orders.

“These universities need to do everything in their power to not comply,” Young said, adding, “all these schools should be doing everything in their power to protect these students.” 

“This inaccurate conflation of Pro-Palestine advocacy with Anti-Semitism sets a scary precedent of censorship for the student community where only certain students are able to participate in free speech,” reads a letter from the University of California Student Association and the University of California Graduate and Professional Council condemning a slew of recent Trump orders. “All students, regardless of their immigration status, have the right to condemn federal and administrative policies contributing to the Palestinian genocide and ethnic cleansing.” 

The letter goes on to call the Trump administration’s actions a “direct threat to the safety and vitality of our campus communities,” and calls on UC leadership to push back against the federal actions and protect students’ free speech rights. 

Asked whether UC Berkeley will comply with the Trump administration orders, spokesman Dan Mogulof referred Berkeleyside to the University of California Office of the President.

“The University of California is reviewing all the Executive Orders issued by President Trump and is assessing the potential impacts on our communities,” reads a statement issued via email by UC spokesperson Omar Rodriguez. “The University of California is unwavering in its commitment to free speech, a bedrock principle at the University.” 

“UC Berkeley has an unwavering commitment to confronting antisemitism as part of our support for a campus community where all can feel safe, respected, and welcome regardless of their origins, identities, beliefs, or perspectives,” Mogulof said of the antisemitism investigation. “So, too, is the university committed to compliance with, and enforcement of the rules, laws, and policies that prohibit identity-based harassment and discrimination on the campus. We will readily comply and cooperate with any requests for documents or information that may arise from the investigation that has been announced.”

The dynamics of student protests over Israel and Palestine at UC Berkeley – and other college campuses – have long been fraught, involving debates over the line between harassment and political speech.

Pro-Palestine activism has increased since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 and taking more than 250 people as hostages.

Israel’s war in Gaza, backed by the U.S., has killed more than 46,600 Palestinians. Blockades of food and water have brought mass starvation, according to aid groups, and about two-thirds of all structures in the occupied territory have been destroyed.

UC Berkeley protests largely peaceful unlike at other campuses

People gather at the “Free Palestine Camp” for their evening activities on May 2, 2024. UC Berkeley protestors ended their three-week demonstration on May 14, after reaching an agreement with then-Chancellor Carol Christ. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight

On the UC Berkeley campus, tensions boiled over last February, when students shut down a talk that had been organized by pro-Israel student groups at Zellerbach Playhouse by smashing a window and breaking down a door, injuring several students. 

Aside from that, UC Berkeley hasn’t seen the physical confrontations and police skirmishes over the last year that prompted organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union to issue criticisms and ultimately, a lawsuit, against California school leaders for summoning riot police to arrest student activists. 

But there has still been tension over the activism, raising the debate over the meaning of antisemitism, Palestinian solidarity and how to wield political speech more broadly. 

In April, student activists launched an occupation of the Sproul Hall steps, with more than 150 tents set up in the area to demand that the university end investments with companies that have ties to Israel, and call attention to Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza.

Then-UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ agreed to call for a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for students closing down the encampment. Christ promised to make sure that the university’s investments aligned with the university’s values but stopped short of committing the university to divesting from companies who do business in Israel. 

In August, UC President Michael Drake directed all 10 campuses to ban encampments. 

The next month, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations filed a 581-page unfair labor practice charge — co-signed by faculty associations at Berkeley, Los Angeles, Irvine, San Diego, Santa Cruz and Davis — with the California Public Employment Relations Board, accusing UC administrators of having threatened faculty for teaching about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of having launched disciplinary actions against faculty for supporting on-campus student encampments.

In October, UC Berkeley staff tore down a sukkah — a temporary hut typically built to use during the Jewish holiday sukkot — that was set up by Jewish Voice for Peace at Sather Gate. The university at the time cited the structure, which activists referred to as a “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah,” as a violation of the campus’ “Time, Place and Manner” policies.

Throughout, the debate has played out in the media and online spaces, too, where Berkeley faculty and students have issued accusations via op-eds in local and national publications about the activism on campus. 

Recently, Steven Solomon, a law professor at UC Berkeley, wrote an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal welcoming the inquiry into “antisemitism” announced by the Trump administration, and accusing the university of abetting a hostile environment for Jewish students and staff. 

Rich Lyons, UC Berkeley’s chancellor, who responded to Solomon’s assertion in his own op-ed, pushed back on the idea that UC Berkeley is failing to curb antisemitism or to create a safe place for students, faculty and speech.

“I am committed to having a community where all people and views are welcome, and believe our culture is strong enough to support a true marketplace of ideas,” Lyons wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Rich Lyon, UC Berkeley’s new Chancellor and Dan Mogolouf, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Communication, sat down for an interview with Berkeleyside on Sept. 20. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

For some Jewish faculty, there is nuance to be found in the discussion of antisemitism on UC Berkeley’s campus.

Last year, Ron Hassner, a professor of political science at UC Berkeley and chair of the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, drew attention for a protest in which he slept in his office for two weeks in an attempt to draw attention to antisemitism and urge the university’s administration to step up its efforts to fight it. 

Antisemitism, Hassner said in an interview with Berkeleyside, has been real and present, but any formal inquiry into it would likely find that the university has made strides in curbing it. He praised the bolstering of the Antisemitism Education Initiative, which was founded in 2019 at the university. 

I don’t think there is a place in America that is free of antisemitism or racism or any form of bigotry, or Islamophobia, for that matter, but Berkeley is working on it.

RON HASSNER, UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Hassner, who declined to comment directly on Trump’s executive order, said he ended his protest last year because UC officials accepted the requests he had made, including taking extra steps to prevent the “harassment” of Jewish students by increasing the presence of “observers” to monitor campus, and to institute mandatory training for students in antisemitism and anti-Islamophobia. 

“That was a year ago. Since then, the university has accelerated all of these things,” Hassner said, praising the university’s efforts. “I don’t think there is a place in America that is free of antisemitism or racism or any form of bigotry, or Islamophobia, for that matter, but Berkeley is working on it.”

For pro-Palestine activists on campus, the discussion of antisemitism can appear hypocritical in light of the Trump administration’s deportation threats and other orders.

In a statement issued on Instagram, UC Berkeley Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine issued a sharp rebuke of Solomon’s op-ed, saying that he “feigns care for the campus community while calling on a fascist, oligarchic regime to bring down its fist on students, staff, and faculty who speak out against the genocide and occupation of Palestinians.

“To do so after Trump’s executive order to deport our international student, staff and faculty comrades is sickening and dangerous,” they continued. 

“We’ve experienced Trump before, but there is some concern now … especially around undocumented students,” said Leila, a graduate student at UC Berkeley who has been part of the movement to support Palestine and requested that Berkeleyside use only her first name. 

UC Berkeley students hold a rally at Sproul Plaza on Oct. 25, 2023, demanding a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. The protest was part of a national walkout by college students across the country. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

Still, she urged, “we’re not going to be silenced. We’re keeping a close eye on it.” 

The Trump orders put into sharp focus the fear that many activists have of any criticism of Israel being conflated with antisemitism.

Longtime Berkeley resident and rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller pointed to the history of antisemitism in which Jewish people are blamed for societal problems.

“It’s not brand new, but in recent decades you have another version of this dynamic where politicians calling themselves allies to Jews take Draconian or extreme action or rhetoric at another group and use the excuse that the group was responsible for antisemitic acts or that the new policy is meant to prevent antisemitism,” Saxe-Taller said. 

“As just one example, claiming that deporting undocumented people who have protested against Israel is actually being done to protect Jews, rather than for a wholly other agenda of deportation,” she continued. “This ends up hurting people, stirring up more antisemitism and dividing Jews and groups we are often allied with from each other.”

Saxe-Taller is one of several Berkeley faith leaders cautioning against accepting the actions by the Trump administration in the name of antisemitism.

“It’s a real problem — antisemitism is being used by the Trump administration to put forth policies that have nothing to do with it,” said Bridget Wynne, a Berkeley rabbi. “There is rhetoric that I don’t think has any connection with any evidence at all that is trying to portray who belongs in this country.”

Wynne (who is also the executive director of an organization called Jewish Gateways but noted that she was speaking on behalf of only herself) cited Jewish scripture that encourages people to “treat well the stranger.” 

“Just to say it clearly, Jewish tradition has so many reasons to be in support of immigrants,” Wynne said.