Trump’s Homeland Security Agents now just doing ICE’s dirty work, targeting pro-Palestinian academics

Four experienced Homeland Security agents have given testimony saying that the Trump administration’s orders to arrest pro-Palestinian foreign academics for deportation were very unusual and described as urgent. This suggests a major change in the focus of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), shifting toward immigration enforcement, which is normally handled by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

These details came out during an ongoing lawsuit in Boston that claims the Trump administration is carrying out an “ideological deportation policy” targeting non-citizens because of their speech. This kind of thing clearly violates the First Amendment. Agents involved in the arrests of recent Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk both said they were surprised by the nature of the requests.

According to Politico, one agent who was concerned was Darren McCormack, who oversaw Khalil’s arrest in March. He said, “Somebody at a higher level than the people I was speaking to had an interest in him.” Similarly, Agent Brian Cunningham, who supervised Öztürk’s arrest, remembered “a lot of hands in the fishbowl,” meaning many people were involved in the decision. He even contacted a Homeland Security lawyer because the request seemed so unusual.

Homeland Security agents are finally admitting to targeting immigrants who don’t believe MAGA

Each of these arrests, which also included Georgetown University researcher Badar Khan Suri and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, happened because Secretary of State Marco Rubio decided these individuals’ presence in the U.S. harmed U.S. foreign policy interests. Rubio has publicly said his department has canceled hundreds of visas for people seen as supporting movements that go against U.S. foreign policy, often pointing to their involvement in protests.

Still, federal judges later ordered the release of all four academics, ruling that Rubio’s orders likely violated their constitutional rights. The agents testified that before the current administration, their division, HSI, was rarely involved in immigration enforcement. Instead, they mostly worked on criminal investigations like drug smuggling and money laundering.

They said that soon after President Trump returned to the White House in January, they were told that immigration enforcement (under Title 8) would become a top priority. Cunningham specifically mentioned that the background information he got about Öztürk included an opinion piece she co-wrote supporting divestment from Israel, though he said he didn’t see anything criminal in it, but ICE has started deporting for small reasons.

Both Cunningham and McCormack said they were never told the academics were targeted because of their pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel views, only that their visas or green cards had been canceled based on Rubio’s decision. The trial, overseen by U.S. District Judge William Young, is still going on. Testimony from a top State Department official, John Armstrong, about the reasons behind Rubio’s decisions is currently on hold.