Last spring, Cornell University was home to a student encampment, where dozens slept in tents on the quad to protest Israel's war in Gaza. The demonstration lasted more than two weeks.
"It's actually one of my most beautiful memories in Ithaca," said a Ph.D. candidate at the school currently studying on a visa. She asked to be identified by the nickname Sam due to concerns over how she could be treated by immigration authorities if targeted for deportation.
Sam didn't sleep in the encampment, but visited daily. She remembers a "supportive and accepting and diverse environment" where students organized alongside faculty members and local residents.
It was part of a wave of demonstrations at schools around the country calling on universities to divest from Israel — protests that students have defended as largely peaceful. However, much of that same activism is now under increased scrutiny as part of a policy that the Trump administration says is aimed at eliminating antisemitism, particularly on American campuses.
The effort has led to the targeting of non-citizen students over their past pro-Palestinian activism, resulting in students losing visas and several high-profile arrests. These incidents have created a climate of uncertainty at many colleges and universities, leaving some students feeling increasingly silenced and fearful.
Sam disagrees with the administration labeling the protests as antisemitic. She argues the movement she supports is focused on criticizing Israel and its policies towards Palestinians — not discriminating against Jewish students.
But watching Trump's actions has made her worried for her safety.
"A huge part of my time and energy that I used to dedicate to work, to my projects, to organizing, to my own care, I've had to move it towards preventive actions," she said. "A lot of what I felt that I could do to contribute to society has now been diminished."
Now, every day, Sam checks her email for a potential notice revoking her visa. When she picks out her clothes each morning, she wonders if they are comfortable enough in case she is arrested.
In recent weeks, she has watched other student protesters have their lives upended, including Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident, and Rumeysa Öztürk, a Ph.D. candidate at Tufts University who had a visa. Both are currently being held in U.S. detention centers and challenging their arrests. On Friday, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Khalil can be deported – a decision he is expected to appeal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended the administration's efforts and said he has already revoked hundreds of visas, including many for students.
"We are not going to be importing activists into the United States," Rubio told reporters after both Khalil and Öztürk's arrests. "They're here to study. They're here to go to class. They're not here to lead activist movements that are disruptive and undermine the — our universities. I think it's lunacy to continue to allow that."
'So many students are just terrified'
During last year's surge of campus protests, there were reports of antisemitic incidents that left some Jewish students feeling unsafe, including at Columbia University, as reported by the Columbia Spectator. Columbia was also one of multiple schools that moved their spring classes online shortly after dozens of student protesters were suspended and arrested.
The allegations of antisemitism drew the ire of both Republican and some Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill. They also formed much of the basis for language in an executive order signed by President Trump within days of his return to office. The order cites "an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism and violence" and calls on the government to use "all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence."
Student protesters adamantly dispute allegations that last year's demonstrations were discriminatory towards Jewish students. And while extremism researchers have clocked surges in anti-Jewish sentiment nationwide in recent years, they have also cautioned against broadly characterizing the campus protests as antisemitic.
Watching the administration's arrests of Öztürk and Khalil has raised alarm bells, including from Kenneth Stern, who heads the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College and drafted a commonly used definition of antisemitism. In a recent interview with NPR's Morning Edition, Stern, a supporter of Israel, said Trump's actions represent a "weaponizing" of antisemitism.
"To me, one of the things that's important for our ability to combat antisemitism and other forms of hate is having strong democratic institutions," he said. "When we're assaulting free speech, that's McCarthyism. We don't have strong democratic institutions anymore."
It's a sentiment felt by students on campus who support the pro-Palestinian movement.
"It's just incredibly heartbreaking that antisemitism is the device weaponized to enact this repression to ... induce this chilling effect on campus," said an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University. He is Jewish and a U.S. citizen, but he asked to have his name withheld out of concern for being harassed online.
"So many students are just terrified," he said. "Not even protesting in support of Palestine, but protesting in support of anything."
Activists at other schools report witnessing a similar hesitancy, particularly among their peers who are not U.S. citizens.
"We've seen a lot less attendance from international students and even some organizers … they had to quit because of just the amount of potential risk that's involved," said an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
He's a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent and asked to withhold his name because he worries about the ability to visit family abroad. He said that while he has seen an increase in individuals wanting to push back against the Trump administration, organizers have also had to take more precautions when speaking out.
"We try to have our citizens always do the speeches, always do the chanting, the rallying, always be the ones that are planning it because we have the least risk at the moment," he added. "We definitely advise our international students to stay away for now."
Pressure on universities
Back at Cornell, undergraduate Yihun Stith has been working to get his school to provide more protections for non-citizen students, advocating for faculty and police to undergo additional training on how to deal with requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He recalled a recent conversation with an international classmate.
"She said, 'I felt like no one had cared about us,'" Stith remembered. "That is what they feel at this university. They feel like the university isn't here to protect them."
Stith was part of the student protests last year and played a role in negotiations with the university. He organized alongside Ph.D. student Momodou Taal, an international student who recently chose to leave the country after his visa was rescinded.
Before this past month, Stith said he had already felt disenchanted with his school's ability to hear student needs. Now, as his classmates report feeling unsafe, his concerns have only grown.
"It shows that nothing really matters to them," he added.
Students want more university support, but schools are under pressure in their own right. On top of examining student activism, the administration has announced civil rights investigations into 60 universities over their handling of alleged antisemitism.
It has resulted in some of the top private universities in the country losing federal funding, including Cornell.
Just this week, an administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigations confirmed that about $1 billion in federal funding had been frozen for the university.
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