Michigan’s colleges and universities are digesting an executive order issued by President Donald Trump last week to address “the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets.”

The EO comes in response to “pro-Palestine rallies” on university campuses across the country last year in the wake of Hamas’ war against Israel. The protests to demand divestment from Israel and businesses that support the country’s defense have come with widespread reports of antisemitic attacks on students and school officials, including at the University of Michigan, where leaders shut down a protest encampment last spring.

“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 said in a fact sheet on his recent EO cited by Reuters. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

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Trump’s EO, titled “additional measures to combat anti-Semitism,” references Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war, and encourages schools to identify “alien students” that may pose a security threat.

“It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence,” the EO reads.

In Ann Arbor, scores of protests over the last year have created clashes between pro-Palestinian activist students and police, resulting in the school recently suspending the student group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, The Detroit News reports.

UM Director of Public Affairs Kay Jarvis noted the suspension followed protests at the home of university regents and a student event on campus known as Festifall.

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“Protests are welcome at UM, so long as those protests do not infringe on the rights of others, significantly disrupt university events or operations, violate policies or threaten the safety of the community,” Jarvis said in a statement. “The university has been clear that we will enforce our policies related to protests and expressive activity, and that we will hold individuals and student organizations accountable for their actions in order to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all.”

Those efforts have also involved the pursuit of criminal charges against nearly a dozen pro-Palestine student activists, which prompted allegations of bias by Jewish Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Ruby Robinson, attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, told Michigan Advance that while students on visas have First Amendment protections, they can face deportation if the Trump administration decides they’re a threat to national security.

“If the department believes that you endanger public safety or national security, or that you intend to overthrow the government by force, violence or other unlawful means, that is sufficient to initiate deportation against that person,” Robinson said. “Or if they have done certain things that support a terrorist organization, that can also make them deportable, even if they’re lawfully here.”

UM is “carefully reviewing all of the executive orders to understand their implications on the institution and students,” Jarvis told the news site.

It’s a similar situation at Wayne State University, where spokesman Matt Lockwood told the Detroit Free Press officials are “in the process of evaluating” Trump’s executive orders.

In the meantime, UM and other schools are offering advice and legal help for students regarding immigration related enforcement issues on campus, both for the pro-Palestine protestors and illegal immigrants.

Under a heading “International Students, Employees and Scholars” on the university website, UM notes Trump’s EO “enhances vetting for all visa applicants, including F-1 and J-1 students, and directs the departments of State and Homeland Security to ensure that applicants ‘do not bear hostile attitudes’ toward U.S. institutions.”

The UM guidance advises students, faculty and staff who come into contact with immigration officials to call university police and lawyers, and to deny access to restricted areas like dorms without a valid criminal warrant.

UM also suggests those approached by federal immigration officials record the encounters.

“UM’s educational mission requires a safe and secure learning environment for its students. Accordingly, UM has designated its classroom buildings as restricted areas with limited access,” university guidance reads.

“If ICE agents do not present a warrant or have clear legal authority, they cannot access restricted spaces without explicit permission.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a D.C.-based Muslim advocacy group, told Reuters it is considering legal action to fight Trump’s EO, which also requires agency and department leaders to advise the White House within 60 days on all criminal and civil avenues to fight antisemitism.

That includes an inventory of all court cases involving civil rights violations from pro-Palestinian activists at public schools, colleges and universities.

In June, the Biden administration’s U.S. Department of Education found UM failed to protect the civil rights of Jewish students on campus, JNS reports.

In the Office of Civil Rights’ “review of university documentation of 75 reports the university received alleging shared ancestry harassment and/or discrimination from the 2022-23 school year through February 2024, OCR found no evidence that the university complied with its Title VI requirements,” according to the investigative report from the Department of Education.