Deportations and defunding: Who’s next in Trump's Ivy League crackdown?

A little under two months since US President Donald Trump returned to office, he has shaken the established order at home and globally, leaving behind a trail of chaos and uncertainty. His latest target is academia. The Trump administration has cancelled $400 million in grants to Columbia University, an unprecedented government action on a single institution. Trump alleges that Columbia failed to protect Jewish students on campus during protests that broke out last year in support of Gaza. Demonstrations erupted at Columbia and other American universities following the October 2023 kidnappings by Hamas which led to Israel’s decimation of Gaza. More than 48,000 people have died in the Israeli attacks, a humanitarian loss without parallels in recent times.  

A Palestinian student-activist and recent graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, has also been detained by the Department of Homeland Security and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). His deportation has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. Trump, however, remains unfazed and calls it ‘the first arrest of many to come.’ He has promised to deport foreign students involved in ‘illegal protests.’