How Trump Is Twisting a Law Historically Used Against Jews to Target Pro-Palestine Students
Trump and Republicans are weaponizing Jewish safety for their own agenda. It won’t take long before they target Jews as well.
“Shalom Mahmoud” read a flyer posted by the White House Twitter account gloating over the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident detained over supposed “pro-Hamas” activities. Khalil is one of almost a dozen international students or scholars who have been detained by ICE and are now facing deportation for political activities (aka criticizing Israel) framed as Hamas support and antisemitism.
President Donald Trump tries to claim his attacks on academia and pro-Palestinian protests, including deporting Khalil and others, are to protect Jews, but the reality is Trump and Republicans are weaponizing Jewish safety for their own agenda, and are actually twisting a law that was historically used to target Jews (often in the name of anti-communist fervor) and to scapegoat the Jewish community.
The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952
That law is the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. After World War II, there was a push for immigration reform to allow more refugees into the United States. However, the new laws faced almost immediate backlash. Many politicians were concerned that opening the doors to refugees would usher in communism and supposed anti-democratic forces. The answer to these fears was the McCarran-Walter Act. While the bill expanded the quotas for people outside Northern and Western Europe and eliminated racial restrictions for naturalization – which was especially important for Asian immigrants – it also included provisions intended to ensure “undesirable” people could be blocked from naturalization or deported.
Pat McCarran, a Democrat from Nevada and a co-sponsor of the bill, admitted publicly that he thought the United States had to be protected from “Jewish interests.” He claimed the passage of the Displaced Persons Act in 1948, which allowed refugees from WWII into the country, placed the United States at risk of seeing a “flood of undesirables” enter the country, and blamed the legislation on Jewish representatives and Jewish organizations. The McCarran-Walter Act, known formally as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA), offered protection from anti-Democratic (Jewish or communist) interests by removing due process protections from immigrants facing deportation. The act also stated that any immigrants who were anarchists or communists were in the class of deportable immigrants.
The Trump administration is now using the INA, which includes language that could apply to anyone with a connection to unnamed totalitarian regimes or organizations interested in “overthrowing” the United States, to target international student protesters critical of Israel.