US private groups hunt student protesters for deportation

When a protester was caught on video in January at a New York rally against Israel, only her eyes were visible between a mask and headscarf. But days later, photos of her entire face, along with her name and employer, were circulated online.

“Months of them hiding their faces went down the drain!” a fledgling technology company boasted in a social media post, claiming its facial-recognition tool had identified the woman despite the coverings.

She was anything but a lone target. The same software was also used to review images taken during months of pro-Palestinian marches at US colleges.

A right-wing Jewish group said some people identified with the tool were on a list of names it submitted to President Donald Trump’s administration, urging that they be deported in accordance with his call for the expulsion of foreign students who participated in “pro-jihadist” protests.

Other pro-Israel groups have enlisted help from supporters on campuses, urging them to report foreign students who participated in protests against the war in Gaza to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

The push to identify masked protesters using facial recognition and turn them in is blurring the line between public law enforcement and private groups. And the efforts have stirred anxiety among foreign students worried that activism could jeopardise their legal status.

“It’s a very concerning practice. We don’t know who these individuals are or what they’re doing with this information,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Essentially the administration is outsourcing surveillance.”

It’s unclear whether names from outside groups have reached top government officials. But concern about the pursuit of activists has risen since the March 8 arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent who helped lead demonstrations against Israel’s conduct of the war.

Immigration officers also detained a Tufts University student from Turkiye outside Boston this week, and Trump and other officials have said that more arrests of international students are coming.

“Now they’re using tools of the state to actually go after people,” said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests and spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about losing her visa. “We suddenly feel like we’re being forced to think about our survival.”

Ayoub said he is concerned, in part, that groups bent on exposing pro-Palestinian activists will make mistakes and single out students who did nothing wrong.

Some groups pushing for deportations say their focus is on students whose actions go beyond marching in protests, to those taking over campus buildings and inciting violence against Jewish students.

“If you’re here, right, on a student visa causing civil unrest ... assaulting people on the streets, chanting for people’s death, why the heck did you come to this country?” said Eliyahu Hawila, a software engineer who built the tool designed to identify masked protesters and outed the woman at the January rally.

He has forwarded protesters’ names to groups pressing for them to be deported, disciplined, fired or otherwise punished.