When President Donald Trump signed an order calling for the deportation of foreign students who participated in “pro-jihadist” protests of the war in Gaza, some supporters of the crackdown were already working to identify targets for expulsion.
Here are some key takeaways about the efforts by pro-Israel private groups to expose protesters using facial recognition and other means, and to report them to federal authorities.
A right-wing Jewish group said it used facial-recognition software to identify campus protesters and included them on a list submitted to administration officials earlier this year, seeking deportation.
A New York computer engineer who has built a facial-recognition tool designed to identify masked protesters said he has talked with other pro-Israel groups about licensing the software for their own efforts.
The use of facial-recognition technology by private groups enters territory previously reserved largely for law enforcement, said attorney Sejal Zota, who represents a group of California activists in a lawsuit against facial-recognition company ClearviewAI.
“We’re focused on government use of facial recognition because that’s who we think of as traditionally tracking and monitoring dissent,” Zota said. But “there are now all of these groups who are sort of complicit in that effort.”
Some private groups have urged their followers to report protesters to immigration authorities, heightening the potential consequences.
“Please tell everyone you know who is at a university to file complaints about foreign students and faculty who support Hamas,” Elizabeth Rand, president of a group called Mothers Against Campus Antisemitism, said in a Jan. 21 post to more than 60,000 followers on Facebook that included a link to an ICE tip line. She did not respond to messages seeking comment.
It’s unclear whether names from outside groups have reached top government officials, who have said that more arrests of international students are coming. But concern about the pursuit of activists has risen since the March 8 arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent who helped lead demonstrations against Israel’s conduct of the war.
“Now they’re using tools of the state to actually go after people,” said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests and spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about losing her visa.
Some supporters of deportation say they’re focused on students whose activities go beyond protest, pointing to those who incite violence or occupy campus buildings illegally.
“If you’re here, right, on a student visa causing civil unrest … assaulting people on the streets, chanting for people’s death, why the heck did you come to this country?” said Eliyahu Hawila, the software engineer whose company built the tool designed to identify masked protesters.
But an Arab-American advocate said he worries that groups bent on exposing pro-Palestinian activists will make mistakes and single out students who did nothing wrong, potentially costing them the right to stay in the U.S.
The practice of unearthing and spreading personal information has become commonplace in the uproar over Gaza, used to harass both activists in the U.S. and Israeli soldiers who recorded video of themselves on the battlefield.
But the long-term consequences of such actions, known as doxing, were limited. The use of facial-recognition technology by private groups and calls to turn people in to immigration authorities significantly raises the stakes.
“It’s a very concerning practice. We don’t know who these individuals are or what they’re doing with this information,” said Abed Ayoud, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Essentially the administration is outsourcing surveillance.”