In his attempts to fight antisemitism on college campus-es across the United States, President Donald Trump announced federal funding cuts for educational institutions that permit “illegal” protests.

The announcement was made via the social media platform Truth Social on March 4.

In the post, Trump threatened to imprison or deport foreign students participating in illegal assemblies.

American students, on the contrary, would face permanent expulsion or arrest, depending on the degree of the committed crime.

The announcement aligned with Trump’s continued efforts to eradicate antisemitism at American colleges and universities, especially where major pro-Palestinian student protests occurred last spring following the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023.

Earlier this year on Jan. 29, Trump signed an executive order, launching the federal crackdown on antisemitic activities nationwide and outlining the process of applying federal immigration laws to student protests deemed supportive of terrorism.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” a White House fact sheet read.

Sarah McLaughlin, a senior scholar with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the proposed measures are excessive and unconstitutional.

“The revocation of student visas should not be used to punish and filter out ideas disfavored by the federal government,” McLaughlin said in a statement.

After the order’s implementation, the Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism revealed its plans to visit 10 U.S. universities that were the epicenters of the student protests.

The list of targeted higher education institutions include Columbia University, Harvard University, New York University and Northwestern University.

Columbia was the first to experience federal funding cuts.

On March 7, the institution was deprived of $400 million in grants and contracts despite the ongoing investigations on campus, conducted by a recently established disciplinary committee.

Linda McMahon, the new Secretary of Education, referred to this government decision as the consequence of the university’s failure to protect its Jewish students on campus.

“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses—repeatedly overrun by anti-Semitic students and agitators,” McMahon said in a press release.

In the March 4 announcement, Trump did not specify what assemblies would fall under the category of an illegal protest. He also did not specify what would constitute an agitator.

Gregory Magarian, a law professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, explained that the authorities could declare a protest illegal only when it poses a danger to public safety.

Magarian added that no protest could be considered unlawful for its message. Furthermore, Magarian was concerned with the use of the word “agitator” in Trump’s post.

He stated that it does not exist in legal terminology and instead implies a person who exercises their freedom of speech to draw attention to a problem.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression strongly criticized Trump’s funding policy, arguing that he does not have the unilateral authority to deny federal financial aid to educational institutions and expel individual students without the due process of law.

Leslie Cruz-Lobato, a Dean’s Scholar at Baruch College, also believes Trump’s announcement is a direct abuse of his presidential powers, citing a recent arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and a Columbia University graduate, for so-called support of Hamas, a terrorist organization.

Mariam Soumahoro, an accounting student at Baruch, said in an interview with The Ticker that the withdrawal of federal funds could make higher education more expensive for students, ultimately discouraging them from pursuing it