The US State Department will use artificial intelligence to revoke the visas of foreign students which he perceives as supporters of Hamas, Axios reported Thursday, citing senior officials from the State Department.
Donald Trump signed a decree in January to combat anti-Semitism and is committed to expeling non-citizen students and others who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have been continuing for months in the middle of the military assault of Israel against Gaza after the October 2023 attack in Hamas.
The effort of “capture and revocation” fed by AI will include exams assisted by AI tens of thousands of social media accounts for student visas, Axios reported. The managers will also check the information on the previous demonstrations against Israel’s policies and the legal proceedings of Jewish students highlighting foreign nationals who were engaged in anti -Semitism.
Some pro-Palestinian groups are themselves Jewish and many demonstrators have denounced anti-Semitism and Hamas. However, there have been incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and pro-Israeli counter-demonstrations.
The defenders fear that the use of artificial intelligence for surveillance could lead to errors, identification errors and privacy violations.
“This should affect all Americans. This is a question of the first amendment and freedom of expression and the administration will survive his hand, “said Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab anti-discrimination committee. “Americans will not like it. They will see this as rights of freedom of expression capitulated for a foreign nation. »»
The State Department works with the departments of justice and internal security, according to Axios. The three departments had no immediate comments.
Trump said that he would stop federal funding from educational establishments that allow what he called illegal demonstrations.
“The agitators will be imprisoned / or returned permanently to the country from which they came. US students will be expelled permanently or … arrested, “Trump said on Tuesday.
The first amendment to the American Constitution protects freedom of expression and assembly. Defenders of rights condemned Trump’s rhetoric to demonstrators.
Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union published an open letter urging colleges and universities not to bow before federal pressure to use surveillance or punish international students or teachers if they were involved in campus demonstrations. The group said that the demonstrations were freedom of expression protected by the Constitution.
“It is disturbing to see the White House threaten freedom of expression and academic freedom on American college campuses so manifestly,” said Cecillia Wang, ACLU legal director and co-author of the letter. “Trump’s latest coercion campaign, trying to return university administrators against their own students and teachers, brings back to the McCarthy era and disagree with American constitutional values and the basic mission of universities.”
Washington has appointed Hamas as a “foreign terrorist organization”. The attack on the Islamist group of the group of 723 of October 7 killed 1,200 people, with more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli accounts.
The military assault of Israel against Gaza killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to the authorities of Gaza. He moved internally almost everyone there and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.
