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Foreign students say the threat of Trump's executive orders is getting real
Pro-Palestinian students hold up Palestinian flags during UMass Amherst graduation ceremonies in May 2024. They left the graduation event in protest.
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
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John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
It was billed as a “Palestine Night” gala and fundraiser, with proceeds going to families in Gaza. At the campus student center at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, students in traditional Palestinian red and black robes mingled with others amid tables selling jewelry and keffiyeh head coverings, a photo booth, and prayer mats.
The annual event, put on by Students for Justice in Palestine, is usually a big draw, but this year, more than a few students were nervous about showing up.
“I was scared that I would get photographed or something, and that would cause a problem,” said one foreign student in the U.S. who asked that her name not be used for fear of jeopardizing her visa. “My dad knows that I am very pro-Palestine, and he was like be very careful, like you don’t want to take any risks.”

The risks for foreign students have heightened dramatically since President Trump’s recent executive orders cracking down on those deemed to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, and the directives already appear to be chilling political activism.
One order targets foreigners who “threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology” or “support designated foreign terrorists.” A second order meant to combat antisemitism specifically targets “Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.” Both call for strict enforcement of existing immigration laws that bar visas for any such foreigners.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice,” Trump said. “We will find you, and we will deport you.”
Abed Ayoub, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, say the threat is getting real. He says the ADC has heard from at least a dozen students who left the U.S. for winter break and were unable to return because their visas were cancelled — with no explanation given.
“Two of them have no involvement at all with student activism on campus. They just happened to be from Gaza,” Ayoub says. “This should be a concern of all Americans because this opens the door to really criminalizing any speech and any expression in the nation.”
Asked for confirmation that visas were cancelled, a State Department spokesperson said they could not comment because of confidentiality laws. The spokesperson said that “the State Department generally revokes visas when information comes to light indicating that an applicant may no longer be eligible for the visa under U.S. immigration laws, including when an applicant poses a threat to U.S. public safety and national security.”
Some students welcome the orders, saying any student who crosses the line from pro-Palestinian advocacy to supporting terrorist groups is not acceptable on campus. And they say it’s too early to say that any crackdown will probe to be an overreach. But others are fearful, laying low for the moment and skipping events and protests, or showing up anyway, with trepidation, like the student at the “Palestine Night” event who asked that her name not be used.
“I feel like college is a time when we should be able to speak freely,” she said. “I’ve been raised with the values that I should be vocal about what I believe in, so it almost feels like I’m lying to myself when I can’t say what I feel.”
Trump’s order on antisemitism calls on schools to monitor their foreign students and staff — and report those who are “Hamas sympathizers” or “pro-jihadist,” as Trump put it. Schools contacted by NPR declined to comment on how they will comply with the directive, or said only that they’re still reviewing it.
Meantime, pro-Israel groups say they’re receiving a growing number of tips accusing campus activists of supporting U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.
“One of my friends … was texting me frantically”
It’s all fueling concerns that “support” will be over-broadly interpreted, and authorities will be cracking down even on peaceful protesters, the majority of whom are focused on human rights and divestment. Many students worry that Trump’s orders are a thinly veiled attempt to silence any pro-Palestinian advocacy.
“Their main target is anyone who supports Palestine in any way shape or form,” says another student, an American citizen born to Palestinian parents, who asked not to be named for fear of harassment. He says his friends on student visas are terrified that even an old post or photo could come back to haunt them.
“One of my friends actually was texting me frantically” in the middle of the night, he recalls. “His face was in one of those posts, and he was texting me, ‘Can we get this post removed?’ And that kind of hit me, this is serious.”
Some college newspapers are hearing the same concerns, so much so that the student newspaper at Purdue University, The Purdue Exponent, decided to give blanket anonymity to all students at all pro-Palestinian protests. The paper even scrubbed all protesters’ names and photos from its archives, explaining that it “refuses to be party to such a blatant violation of the First Amendment rights.”
Other students, however, have denounced the paper’s new policy, saying that’ll make it tougher to hold protesters accountable and to restore safety and stability to campuses.
“I think that’s wrong,” says Sabrina Soffer, a pro-Israel student at George Washington University. “It’s like when [protesters] wear masks. It’s just another way to put another obstacle in the way of holding students accountable.”
Of course, Soffer says, implementation of the executive orders must be thoughtful and judicious. “Being pro-Palestinian is not being pro-jihad,” she says. “But at the same time, we have to be scrupulous enough to make sure that those who really are a threat and who are connected to these terrorist organizations are the ones held accountable.”
Maia Shteyman, a pro-Israel student from UMass Amherst, agrees. Students demanding humanitarian aid in Gaza, criticizing Israel or waving a Palestinian flag, for example, are not the issue, Shteyman says. But, she says, she’s seen some protesters openly supporting U.S.-labeled terrorist groups on her campus, and that needs to be addressed.
“They were wearing Hamas-like uniforms, with the headbands, and there were intifada signs everywhere [saying] ‘Go Hamas,’ and pro-Hamas stuff. They were just saying this stuff straight up to our face,” Shteyman says.
“I think it’s much more common that you might imagine, that there are people actually coordinating with Hamas, that they are acting as the PR agents of Hamas,” says attorney Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. He has filed a federal lawsuit alleging direct ties between student groups and U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, and some protesters’ explicit support for them.
“They are saying, ‘We are Hamas and we want to do these things,’ ” Goldfeder says. “It behooves us to believe them and to take precautions for our national security. It is genuinely dangerous. And you don’t even have to like the Jews to worry about it because they’re coming for the United States, as well.”
Deportation attempts likely to wind up in court
Ultimately, any effort to deport a student for protest activity is all but certain to be challenged in court.
“The government would have a huge First Amendment hurdle to overcome if it sought to go after someone for their pure speech,” says David Cole, Georgetown Law professor and former national legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union. “If it were enforced, it would be, I believe, struck down.”
Others take a different view. Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, is also a staunch free speech proponent. But in this case, he says, “It’s not about policing or prosecuting speech, it’s about enforcing immigration regulations, and immigration regulations say that if you espouse support for certain groups that are inimical to the American interest, then you don’t get a visa, or if you’re here already then your visa gets revoked.”
Meantime, pro-Palestinian students are left contemplating their risk. Some, like a 27-year old graduate student from the West Bank, who asked that his name not be used for fear of being targeted, says he will continue to speak out.
“I mean my people are being slaughtered there and dehumanized,” he says. “I’m not going to just sit down there and just be afraid of speaking out, no matter what the consequences are.”
Still, he did reach out to a free-speech advocacy group to make sure he’s got help lined up just in case, as he put it, someone wants to “get rid of” him.
News
Community reacts to ICE shooting in Minnesota. And, RFK Jr. unveils new food pyramid
Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.
Today’s top stories
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis woman, yesterday. Multiple observers captured the shooting on video, and community members demanded accountability. Minnesota law enforcement officials and the FBI are investigating the fatal shooting, which the Trump administration says was an act of self-defense. Meanwhile, the mayor has accused the officer of reckless use of power and demanded that ICE get out of Minneapolis.
People demonstrate during a vigil at the site where a woman was shot and killed by an immigration officer earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, 2026. An immigration officer in Minneapolis shot dead a woman on Wednesday, triggering outrage from local leaders even as President Trump claimed the officer acted in self-defense. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey deemed the government’s allegation that the woman was attacking federal agents “bullshit,” and called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting a second day of mass raids to leave Minneapolis.
Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images
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Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images
- 🎧 Caitlin Callenson recorded the shooting and says officers gave Good multiple conflicting instructions while she was in her vehicle. Callenson says Good was already unresponsive when officers pulled her from the car. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claims the officer was struck by the vehicle and acted in self-defense. In the video NPR reviewed, the officer doesn’t seem to be hit and was seen walking after he fired the shots, NPR’s Meg Anderson tells Up First. Anderson says it has been mostly peaceful in Minneapolis, but there is a lot of anger and tension because protesters want ICE out of the city.
U.S. forces yesterday seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the north Atlantic between Iceland and Britain after a two-week chase. The tanker was originally headed to Venezuela, but it changed course to avoid the U.S. ships. This action comes as the Trump administration begins releasing new information about its plans for Venezuela’s oil industry.
- 🎧 It has been a dramatic week for U.S. operations in Venezuela, NPR’s Greg Myre says, prompting critics to ask if a real plan for the road ahead exists. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded that the U.S. does have a strategy to stabilize Venezuela, and much of it seems to involve oil. Rubio said the U.S. would take control of up to 50 million barrels of oil from the country. Myre says the Trump administration appears to have a multipronged strategy that involves taking over the country’s oil, selling it on the world market and pressuring U.S. oil companies to enter Venezuela.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released new dietary guidelines for Americans yesterday that focus on promoting whole foods, proteins and healthy fats. The guidance, which he says aims to “revolutionize our food culture,” comes with a new food pyramid, which replaces the current MyPlate symbol.
- 🎧 “I’m very disappointed in the new pyramid,” Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert who was on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, tells NPR’s Allison Aubrey. Gardner says the new food structure, which features red meat and saturated fats at the top, contradicts decades of evidence and research. Poor eating habits and the standard American diet are widely considered to cause chronic disease. Aubrey says the new guidelines alone won’t change people’s eating habits, but they will be highly influential. This guidance will shape the offerings in school meals and on military bases, and determine what’s allowed in federal nutrition programs.
Special series
Trump has tried to bury the truth of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. NPR built a visual archive of the attack on the Capitol, showing exactly what happened through the lenses of the people who were there. “Chapter 4: The investigation” shows how federal investigators found the rioters and built the largest criminal case in U.S. history.
Political leaders, including Trump, called for rioters to face justice for their actions on Jan. 6. This request came because so few people were arrested during the attack. The extremists who led the riot remained free, and some threatened further violence. The government launched the largest federal investigation in American history, resulting in the arrest of over 1,500 individuals from all 50 states. The most serious cases were made by prosecutors against leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. For their roles in planning the attack against the U.S., some extremists were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Take a look at the Jan. 6 prosecutions by the numbers, including the highest sentence received.
To learn more, explore NPR’s database of federal criminal cases from Jan. 6. You can also see more of NPR’s reporting on the topic.
Deep dive
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Trump takes 325 milligrams of daily aspirin, which is four times the recommended 81 milligrams of low-dose aspirin used for cardiovascular disease prevention. The president revealed this detail in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published last week. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that anyone over 60 not start a daily dose of aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease if they don’t already have an underlying problem. The group said it’s reasonable to stop preventive aspirin in people already taking it around age 75 years. Trump is 79. This is what you should know about aspirin and cardiac health:
- 💊 Doctors often prescribe the low dose of aspirin because there’s no benefit to taking a higher dose, according to a large study published in 2021.
- 💊 Some people, including adults who have undergone heart bypass surgery and those who have had a heart attack, should take the advised dose of the drug for their entire life.
- 💊 While safer than other blood thinners, the drug — even at low doses — raises the risk of bleeding in the stomach and brain. But these adverse events are unlikely to cause death.
3 things to know before you go
When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.
Christopher D. Pull/ISTA
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Christopher D. Pull/ISTA
- Young, terminally ill ants will send out an altruistic “kill me” signal to worker ants, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications. With this strategy, the sick ants sacrifice themselves for the good of their colony.
- In this week’s Far-Flung Postcards series, you can spot a real, lone California sequoia tree in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. Napoleon III transformed the park from a former landfill into one of the French capital’s greenest escapes.
- The ACLU and several authors have sued Utah over its “sensitive materials” book law, which has now banned 22 books in K-12 schools. Among the books on the ban list are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. (via KUER)
This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
News
Video: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
new video loaded: Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
transcript
transcript
Minnesota Governor Condemns ICE Shooting
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota slammed the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration agent. President Trump said that the agents had acted in self-defense.
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This morning, we learned that an ICE officer shot and killed someone in Minneapolis. We have been warning for weeks that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety, that someone was going to get hurt. Just yesterday, I said exactly that. What we’re seeing is the consequences of governance designed to generate fear, headlines and conflict. It’s governing by reality TV. And today, that recklessness cost someone their life.
By Jiawei Wang
January 8, 2026
News
U.S. to exit 66 international organizations in further retreat from global cooperation
The symbol of the United Nations is displayed outside the Secretariat Building on Feb. 28, 2022, at United Nations Headquarters.
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John Minchillo/AP
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the U.N.’s population agency and the U.N. treaty that establishes international climate negotiations, as the U.S. further retreats from global cooperation.
President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order suspending U.S. support for 66 organizations, agencies, and commissions, following his administration’s review of participation in and funding for all international organizations, including those affiliated with the United Nations, according to a White House release.

Most of the targets are U.N.-related agencies, commissions and advisory panels that focus on climate, labor, migration and other issues the Trump administration has categorized as catering to diversity and “woke” initiatives. Other non-U.N. organizations on the list include the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and Global Counterterrorism Forum.
“The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Trump’s decision to withdraw from organizations that foster cooperation among nations to address global challenges comes as his administration has launched military efforts or issued threats that have rattled allies and adversaries alike, including capturing autocratic Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and indicating an intention to take over Greenland.
U.S. builds on pattern of exiting global agencies
The administration previously suspended support from agencies like the World Health Organization, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO. It has taken a larger, a-la-carte approach to paying its dues to the world body, picking which operations and agencies it believes align with Trump’s agenda and those that no longer serve U.S. interests.
“I think what we’re seeing is the crystallization of the U.S. approach to multilateralism, which is ‘my way or the highway,’” said Daniel Forti, head of U.N. affairs at the International Crisis Group. “It’s a very clear vision of wanting international cooperation on Washington’s own terms.”

It has marked a major shift from how previous administrations — both Republican and Democratic — have dealt with the U.N., and it has forced the world body, already undergoing its own internal reckoning, to respond with a series of staffing and program cuts.
Many independent nongovernmental agencies — some that work with the United Nations — have cited many project closures because of the U.S. administration’s decision last year to slash foreign assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Despite the massive shift, the U.S. officials, including Trump himself, say they have seen the potential of the U.N. and want to instead focus taxpayer money on expanding American influence in many of the standard-setting U.N. initiatives where there is competition with China, like the International Telecommunications Union, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization.
The latest global organizations the U.S. is departing
The withdrawal from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, is the latest effort by Trump and his allies to distance the U.S. from international organizations focused on climate and addressing climate change.
UNFCC, the 1992 agreement between 198 countries to financially support climate change activities in developing countries, is the underlying treaty for the landmark Paris climate agreement. Trump — who calls climate change a hoax — withdrew from that agreement soon after reclaiming the White House.

Gina McCarthy, former White House National Climate Adviser, said being the only country in the world not part of the treaty is “shortsighted, embarrassing, and a foolish decision.”
“This Administration is forfeiting our country’s ability to influence trillions of dollars in investments, policies, and decisions that would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking havoc on our country,” McCarthy, who co-chairs America Is All In, a coalition of climate-concerned U.S. states and cities, said in a statement.
Mainstream scientists say climate change is behind increasing instances of deadly and costly extreme weather, including flooding, droughts, wildfires, intense rainfall events and dangerous heat.
The U.S. withdrawal could hinder global efforts to curb greenhouse gases because it “gives other nations the excuse to delay their own actions and commitments,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks countries’ carbon dioxide emissions.

It will also be difficult to achieve meaningful progress on climate change without cooperation from the U.S., one of the world’s largest emitters and economies, experts said.
The U.N. Population Fund, the agency providing sexual and reproductive health worldwide, has long been a lightning rod for Republican opposition, and Trump cut funding for it during his first term. He and other GOP officials have accused the agency of participating in “coercive abortion practices” in countries like China.
When President Biden took office in January 2021, he restored funding for the agency. A State Department review conducted the following year found no evidence to support GOP claims.
Other organizations and agencies that the U.S. will quit include the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the Pan-American Institute for Geography and History, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group.
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