by In federal court on Wednesday, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent testified that his staff had targeted foreign student activists for investigation and potential deportation by using opaque pro-Israel blacklisting websites.
Peter Hatch, the assistant director of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division, made the admission, which seemed to be the first time an administration official had admitted to drawing inspiration from the covert organizations operating the websites, such as Canary Mission, which has been charged with doxxing people involved in pro-Palestinian activism.
On the third day of the trial, Mr. Hatch testified in a case that has become a significant challenge to the Trump administration’s crackdown on international students.
Mr. Hatch was called as a witness by attorneys for the academic associations that sued the administration, who argued that the detention of well-known opponents of Israel was a part of a policy to suppress political speech that did not support President Trump’s objectives.
The existence of any official policy has been disputed by the government. The pro-Palestinian protests that rocked college campuses in response to the conflict in Gaza have been repeatedly described as harmful to American interests by Mr. Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other administration officials. The protests on campus have been condemned by Mr. Rubio as showing support for Hamas, which launched the Israeli campaign in Gaza after attacking Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas is regarded as a terrorist group by the US.
The information regarding the abrupt spike in student arrests that started in March of this year, when six noncitizen academics, including some of the most well-known figures in the pro-Palestinian movement, were taken away by masked immigration officers, was greatly advanced by Mr. Hatch’s testimony.
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