Students in the bay region protest against Trump Crackdown against pro-Palestinian demonstrators

More than 100 students from the Baie region met Thursday to condemn what they called the “repressive repression” of the Trump administration against the National Student Movement for Palestine.

In Malcolm X Plaza on the Campus of the State University of San Francisco, students of 13 universities of Northern California met to denounce the treatment by the administration of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who, according to the students, represented a frightening attack on their right to freedom of expression.

Students qualified the arrests of students and teachers by the Trump administration who expressed their support to the Palestinians a “tactic for fear” used to send a message that “express themselves for Palestine has serious consequences”.

“We demand that the presidents of our universities condemn the illegal kidnappings of the students by ice and the attack on the civil freedoms of the students and the members of the faculty,” said collaborative students for justice in Palestine in the northern universities of California, referring to American immigration and the application of customs. “The more attacks against our movement, the more it grows and the more our collective commitment to justice becomes strong.”

The joint effort comes when the Trump administration has opened investigations into 60 universities through the country concerning allegations of anti -Semitic discrimination and harassment, notably at California State University Sacramento, at the University of Stanford, UC Davis, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley. The University of California is also faced with an investigation by the United States Ministry of Justice on Affirmations. The university system has granted a “anti -Semitic hostile work environment” on its campuses. A federal working group responsible for fighting anti -Semitism should visit the UC Berkeley campus to investigate the allegations that the university has not protected Jewish students and teachers against harassment and discrimination.

The Rassemblement de Thursday marks the first press conference organized by students from the Bay region since the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and held by immigration agents in his house belonging to a University of Columbia last month for his role in the demonstrations against the War of Israel-Hamas. Khalil, who is of Palestinian origin and grew up in Syria, saw his green card revoked by the administration. The spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Security, Tricia McLaughlin, described Khalil’s arrest as “in support of President Trump’s executive decrees prohibiting anti-Semitism”.

Since then, several other students and teachers across the country – mainly on campuses on the east coast – who protested the War of Israel -Hamas have been detained by federal agents to alternate anti -Semitism, distributing Hamas propaganda and constituting a national security threat.

Students said Thursday that they feared that California schools will be the next ones, although they did not know any arrests linked to immigration in universities in the Bay region.

“Due to the list with so many schools on the west coast, yes, I think it is in our interest to prepare for something like that and not to simply let it come reactionary,” said Max Flynt, a student from the State University of San Francisco with the General Union of Palestine Students. “This is what we see here today, it is the students who are preparing, work together, coordination to make sure that we can fight against something like that if it comes here. But also to stay in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil and all these students who have already been kidnapped. ”

Many schools in the bay region have been at the forefront of demonstrations related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with demonstrations of several months in Stanford, UC Berkeley and Cal Poly Humboldt last year-some leading to clashes with the police and student arrests.

Since then, university leaders have repressed the demonstrations of students, prohibiting camps and establishing new rules that limit when students can protest to try to prevent disturbances on campuses.

On Thursday, students submitted new requests for university officials, including calls to publicly condemn the arrests of militant teachers and students, to assign the assets and investments that support Israel and refuse collaboration with and prevent immigration agents from accessing university campuses.

UC and CSU said that no campus police service would work with federal immigration agents to investigate or remove students from the campus.

But universities also said that as public universities, their campuses are open to the general public, which means that they are also open to federal immigration officers and unable to ban immigration agents from coming to the campus. Universities have said that any physically restricted space by a key card, a locked door or a monitored entrance – including campus housing or certain classrooms and professor offices – limit public and immigration agents who have no mandate to enter.

Students also called university officials to protect teachers and students from doxxing, harassment and harassment for denouncing the War of Israel-Hamas.

Omar Zahzah, assistant professor of Arab and Muslim ethnicity and diasporas studies in the state of San Francisco, said that his personal information and photographs had been disclosed on a public website known to follow activists from the anti -Zionist campus since 2015, when he was still a student. Some civil rights defenders have expressed themselves by fearing that immigration agents use these websites to target international students and teachers for expulsion.

“Now, more than ever, it is up to all institutions to take this seriously and really work to make sure that students and teachers remain protected against doxxing, harassment and the blacklist of all kinds for their political opinions,” said Zahzah.

But Zahzah also said that the “criminalization” of student activism had not started with President Donald Trump, highlighting the demonstrations of the campus of last year, which led to clashes with the police and the arrests of several students.

“It started and really received the green light under the Biden administration,” said Zahzah. “Any administration that allows student speech to be criminalized in this way will only allow the occasion for the next incoming administration to further increase the bet.”

Originally published: April 3, 2025 at 3:26 p.m.