As Donald Trump returns to the White House, congressional Republicans and former Trump appointees have been preparing their response to the movement against Israel’s war in Gaza for the past year. They warn that protest organizers, activists, and those who assist them in raising funds may be subject to a barrage of federal investigations and potential indictments.
A glimpse of the federal statutes that a second Trump administration would employ when conducting investigations and possible prosecutions is given by an NBC News analysis of congressional hearings and letters as well as lawsuits brought by groups headed by former Trump officials.
Several legal actions are most likely to be taken after Trump comes to Washington, based on what has been pushed thus far. One would be deporting international college students who are on a visa to the United States after they are determined to have publicly supported Hamas or another terrorist organization listed by the United States, or after they were suspended, expelled, or imprisoned for taking part in an unapproved campus demonstration.
Pursuing federal charges of protesters who obstruct synagogue doors or interrupt Jewish speakers during events would be an additional step. A third strategy is to accuse protest organizers and nonprofit organizations that assist in protest group funding of not registering as an agent of a foreign principal with the U.S. Justice Department.Investigating protest leaders who have direct communication with U.S.-designated terror groups while speaking out on their behalf is a fourth option.
A notable change from the Biden administration’s response to the protest movement is the varied strategy taken by law enforcement. Leading civil rights organizations in the country told NBC News that they are preparing for a barrage of court cases to defend the demonstrators.
It is foolish to attempt to forecast Trump’s actions. Ben Wizner, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, stated that we must be ready for the most severe form of what he has threatened. He must be taken seriously and literally.
A new sheriff in town
According to Biden administration officials who spoke to NBC News, the current Justice Department does not prioritize prosecuting speech-related charges linked to the anti-war demonstrations, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not prioritize looking for student protestors on foreign visas.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said NBC News via email that President Trump will execute the law. Ernst recently requested that the FBI launch an investigation into Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Hamas student organization at the university. Following a significant public outrage, Zionists originally removed themselves from social media after a member threatened them, but they later backed the group in an Instagram post. Additionally, pro-Hamas fliers with masked individuals brandishing guns were distributed by CUAD and circulated throughout the university.
Ernst stated that the community now has a new sheriff. Ernst’s request has not yet received a response from the FBI, according to her office. A request for comment was not immediately answered by an FBI spokesperson. A representative for Columbia University stated that the fliers were being looked into and that CUAD is not an organization that the university recognizes. CUAD members chose not to comment.
Currently serving as a senior vice president at America First Legal, a public policy legal firm in Washington, D.C., established by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, is Reed Rubinstein, a former high-ranking official in the Justice Department and the U.S. Education Department during the first Trump administration. (Miller is anticipated to rejoin the White House as the policy deputy chief of staff.)
America First Legal has filed four lawsuits under Rubinstein in the last year, offering a window into potential differences between the Trump administration and its predecessor. In the lawsuits, America First Legal claims that pro-Hamas extremists have been shielded by the Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and the State Department.
America First Legal has also stated in court documents and letters to various federal oversight officials that it feels the Justice Department ought to have required a number of pro-Palestinian group leaders to register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. FARA requires anyone acting as an agent of a foreign principal to do so.
Additionally, it has charged the Department of Education with violating Title VI rules, which forbid schools receiving federal funds from permitting discrimination on campus on the basis of race, common ancestry, or ethnic traits, such as being Jewish.
Lawful speech and illegal behavior are two different things, Rubinstein told NBC News. Law enforcement must take action.
The complaints offer a potential roadmap for how Trump-minded prosecutors might react to the protest movement, even though they haven’t advanced in court.
According to court documents, only the Education Department has addressed the accusations to date, stating that it has adequate proof to address the charges that policies aren’t being implemented. A request for comment from the Justice Department was not answered. According to representatives from the Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department, they are unable to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
In an interview, Rubinstein mentioned another measure he believes a second Trump administration could enact. The FACE Act forbids individuals from obstructing places of worship entrances using force, threats, or intimidation. Protesters affiliated with SJP Chicago staged a demonstration against an Arab Israeli speaker who had served in the Israeli military earlier this month at the Chicago Loop Synagogue. Social media videos showed protesters obstructing the synagogue’s entry, beating on the windows, and entering.
According to Rubinstein, you have no authority to prevent someone from gathering in a church or synagogue. We want the Department of Justice to carry out its duties.
The FBI does neither confirm or deny the existence of an inquiry, according to a spokeswoman for the Chicago office. According to the Chicago Police Department, two demonstrators were taken into custody and charged with misdemeanor trespassing and property damage, respectively.
A request for comment was not answered by SJP Chicago.However, an Instagram post claimed that the protesters weren’t anti-Semitic. What’s new is that Zionists have rushed to construct a narrative that these acts were motivated by hate and anti-Semitic.
An expected flood of legal battles
According to some of the top civil rights and free speech organizations in the country, they are preparing to oppose a Trump government and any efforts to target demonstrators or their backers. In cases involving free speech, surveillance, or abuse, groups like the Knight First Amendment Institute, the ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have defended Muslim Americans and pro-Palestinian activists since 9/11.
The deputy executive director of CAIR, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, contended that the Biden administration did not apply FARA to pro-Israel leaders. Both Trump and President Joe Biden, according to Mitchell, target pro-Palestinian activists with either insufficient or excessive enforcement.
Mitchell said that the college students, human rights activists, and regular Americans peacefully opposing the genocide in Gaza have not been deterred by such government abuses and, God willing, will not be deterred by such abuses in the future, just as Americans who peacefully marched, protested, and lobbied against segregation, the Vietnam War, and South African apartheid were not deterred when government agencies spied upon, smeared, arrested, and brutalized them.
Both the ACLU and CCR told NBC News that they are worried about more than simply the administration’s ability to suppress the protests. They cited the potential for a law presently being considered by a Republican-led Congress to remove the tax-exempt status of NGOs designated by a Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary as materially assisting terrorist-related organizations. Additionally, CCR expressed concern that a second Trump administration may falsely accuse protest leaders and nonprofit organizations that assist protest groups in raising money of being foreign agents. Additionally, CCR is keeping an eye on whether the Trump Justice Department would prosecute some individuals who are said to have supported Hamas and other U.S.-designated terror groups for breaching a U.S. anti-terror legislation that forbids endorsing terror groups while working in tandem with them.
We are ready for the Trump administration to take over and alter the rules, especially with regard to the subject of how speech fits into this. Vince Warren, executive director of CCR, said. We don’t believe the Trump administration will draw a distinction between speech and actionable conduct in the same way that the Biden administration did.
The proposals outlined in Project Esther, a project supported by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that released Project 2025, also worry CCR. Project Esther urges law enforcement to use a plethora of federal and state laws to dismantle what it terms the global Hamas Support Network using racketeering laws used to break up the mafia along with anti-terrorism and anti-hate speech laws.
According to Warren, they will toss spaghetti of any kind against the wall.
The Knight Institute said it is ready to fight back, even though it anticipates the next Trump government would aggressively control speech. Earlier this month, Knightsuccessfully rebuffedthe Biden Treasury Department, which had blocked a New York based nonprofit from organizing an overseas conference with Hezbollah members, arguing it can t work with people sanctioned for ties to terrorism groups. The agency reversed course and settled the case earlier this month after Knight argued that an academic exchange of ideas could not violate anti-terror laws.
If there s one thing the First Amendment protects, it s the right of Americans to criticize their own government s policies, said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute s executive director.
The ACLU s Wizner struck a similar note, saying: The courts have made clear that the First Amendment protects all manner of controversial advocacy, including advocacy of violence, so long as the speaker isn t actively inciting imminent harm, Wizner said.
Impact on college campuses
Kenneth Marcus, who ran the Department of Education s Office for Civil Rights during the Trump and George W. Bush administrations, now leads the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, one of the leading civil rights organizations focused on Jewish students. Over the past year, the center has sued a growing list of universities arguing officials failed to stop what it sees as widespread antisemitism on campus.
Marcus said he has met with Department of Education officials requesting an expansion of civil rights enforcement to protect Jewish students on campuses. The Department of Education didn t respond to questions regarding Marcus concerns.
We know that President Trump has repeatedly expressed concern about the campus situation, Marcus said.
During the presidential campaign, one of the 20 promises in the preamble to the Republican Party platform was to deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.
NBC Newsreported in Augustthat the Biden administration said it was not targeting visa revocations for foreign students who may have engaged in speech-related offenses or participated in unauthorized campus protests and had not terminated any university or college student visas due to protest activity related to the Israel-Hamas war.
Trump s return to Washington could lead to possible attempts to revoke student visas for foreign students who openly support Hamas orother U.S.-designated terror organizations, Marcus said. Marcus also anticipates more intervention from the Justice Department when Jewish students say they are being targeted on campus.
At acampaign stop in September, Trump said that at the start of his second presidency, he would inform universities that if they allow violence and threats against Jewish students, they will be held accountable for violations of the civil rights law.
My administration will move swiftly to restore safety for Jewish students and Jewish people on American streets, Trump said.
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