Meet the Right-Wing Ultra-Zionist Immigrant Pushing for Mahmoud Khalil’s Deportation
7 things to know about Trump DOJ lawyer and Donald Rumsfeld fan Yaakov Roth.
In college, he was a Canadian student deeply involved in pro-Israel activism. At one point, he posed with an Israeli general accused of ordering his soldiers to break the bones of Palestinian detainees. He’s also a fan of Donald Rumsfeld.
Now, he’s helping lead the Trump administration’s legal effort to deport Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil.
As the principal assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, Yaakov Roth, an immigrant himself, is at the center of two of the Trump administration’s most high-profile – and contentious – deportation efforts since taking power. He’s a lead attorney in the Khalil case, and he is also working to prevent the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who the Trump administration mistakenly sent to a notorious El Salvador prison – and now refuses to bring back.
In both cases, Roth has taken a maximalist view of presidential power, arguing that President Donald Trump has “expansive authority over foreign affairs, national security, and immigration” to justify some of the more eyebrow-raising Department of Homeland Security moves.
I took a look at Roth’s past, his public social media, and his history of Zionist activism. Roth did not respond to a request for comment, but he did hide or delete many of the public social media posts I found. Luckily, I archived them below. Here are seven things you should know about Yaakov Roth:
1. Roth has a history of pro-Israel and right-wing campus activism
For Yaakov Roth, the battle to deport Mahmoud Khalil might be personal. Roth, who grew up in Canada, was deeply involved in pro-Israel activism in college. Reportedly a member of the Young Zionists Partnership at York University in Toronto, he helped unseat pro-Palestinian members in the student government. The Young Zionists Partnership also hosted “Israeli Defence Forces Appreciation Day” while Roth was enrolled in the university.
His support for Israel appeared on his social media: A now-deleted or hidden photo on his Facebook page appears to show a smiling Roth atop an Israeli military tank.
In his early 20s, he also founded groups for Zionists and supporters of the Canadian Alliance political party, where, according to York University’s campus newsletter, he “frequently sparred with liberals and pro-Palestinians.”
Roth, who graduated in 2004, also reportedly took issue with his university’s “Multicultural Week,” describing multiculturalism as “racism” and describing “Yorks’ devotion to the arguably racist doctrine of multiculturalism” in a 2003 op-ed.
Interestingly, around this time, Roth wrote another op-ed arguing that “even violent protests do not warrant censoring free speech on university campuses.” He decried his Canadian university punishing students, both pro-Palestine and Zionist, for their activism. Ironically, he would go on to do just that, a footsoldier for the Trump administration's war on pro-Palestine activism on campuses.
2. Roth appears to have been a big fan of Donald Rumsfeld
On his public Facebook page, Roth had an album devoted to Donald Rumsfeld, with 48 pixelated photos of George W. Bush’s secretary of defense. The photos have since been deleted or hidden. He even managed to appear to meet Rumsfeld for a photo opportunity.
While at York U, Roth was reportedly “roughed up” when anti-Iraq war protesters “trashed a table with a Canadian Alliance sign on it” where he and another student were handing out seemingly pro-Iraq war pamphlets describing Saddam Hussein’s human rights abuses. He decried the university’s decision to take no action, “despite repeated warnings about security problems.”