'Catch & revoke': Trump administration to use AI to revoke students' visas over pro-Hamas posts

The US Department of State is reportedly planning to use Artificial Intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who they perceive to be supporters of Hamas. According to a report by Axios, a senior state department official close to the initiative gave an insight into the proposed plan on Thursday. The reports are floating months after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to combat antisemitism.

While signing the legislation, the Republican firebrand pledged to deport non-citizens and college students, especially those who took part in the pro-Palestinian protests that rocked different US campuses last year. The official said that the AI-fueled initiative will be called “catch and revoke” and will focus on conducting AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts.

According to Axios, the officials will also check news reports of previous demonstrations against Israel’s policies, along with lawsuits filed by Jewish students accusing foreign students of engaging in antisemitism. However, it is pertinent to note that some of the pro-Palestinian groups were Jewish themselves, and many protesters have denounced antisemitism and Hamas.

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Advocates raise alarm

The supporters of these demonstrations raised the alarm that using artificial intelligence for surveillance could lead to errors, misidentifications and even privacy violations. “This should concern all Americans. This is a First Amendment and freedom of speech issue and the administration will overplay its hand,” said Abed Ayoub, the executive director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Americans won’t like this. They’ll view this as capitulating free speech rights for a foreign nation," he added.

Meanwhile, the state official told Axios that the state Department is working with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to conduct the operation. However, all the three departments are yet to make formal comment over the matter. In the past, Trump said he will stop federal funding for educational institutions that allow what he described as “illegal protests”.

“Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or … arrested,” Trump said on Tuesday. It is pertinent to note that the Constitution of the United States’ First Amendment protects freedom of speech and assembly. Activists have often used the amendment to criticise Trump’s aggressive rhetoric.

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In the midst of all this, on Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union published an open letter urging colleges and universities not to bow to federal pressure to use surveillance or punish international students or faculty if they were involved in any campus protests. The group argued that the protests were constitutionally protected free speech.

“It is disturbing to see the White House threatening freedom of speech and academic freedom on US college campuses so blatantly,” said Cecillia Wang, legal director of the ACLU and co-author of the letter. “Trump’s latest coercion campaign, attempting to turn university administrators against their students and faculty, harkens back to the McCarthy era and is at odds with American constitutional values and the basic mission of universities," she added.  Soon after Hamas’s October 7 attack in Southern Israel, Washington re-designated Hamas as a ‘foreign terrorist organisation’.