Updated April 16, 2025 at 15:28 PM ET
A coalition of Jewish groups warns that the Trump administration is making Jews less safe by targeting international students who protested Israel's war in Gaza and the universities where they study.
In a statement released Tuesday, the coalition of 10 groups brought together by the nonpartisan Jewish Council for Public Affairs states that antisemitism is on the rise in the "public discourse, politics, and institution," but that it opposes the Trump administration's push to strip pro-Palestinian student activists of their visas and deny them due process.
"Our safety as Jews has always been tied to the rule of law, to the safety of others, to the strength of civil society, and to the protection of rights and liberties for all," reads the statement. The coalition includes reform, conservative and reconstructionist organizations, as well as HIAS, as a non-profit immigrant aid group founded by Jewish Americans.
President Trump signed an executive order in January aimed at cracking down on "the explosion of antisemitism" in the U.S. It outlined steps the administration would take to cancel the visas of students who protested the war in Gaza.
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told Morning Edition that she and her group are concerned that fear of antisemitism is being exploited to "undermine our democracy."
She added: "What's clear as these actions continue and grow is that the overwhelming majority of American Jews are feeling many of those same concerns and speaking out."
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Michel Martin: So in issuing this statement, the coalition said it wanted to reject the "false choice between confronting antisemitism and upholding democracy." And the statement goes on to say that "We reject any policies or actions that foment or take advantage of antisemitism and pit communities against one another. And we unequivocally condemn the exploitation of our communities, real concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms and rights, including the rule of law, the right of due process, and or the freedoms of speech, press and peaceful protest." Was there a red line that members of your coalition felt had been crossed?
Spitalnick: Multiple things are true at the same time, but this entire conversation over the last few months has been set up as this false choice, as we wrote in the statement. We know that antisemitism is real and it's rising. And our organizations in this coalition have been speaking out clearly against the alarming rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023 and frankly, long before that as well. And at the same time, we've seen this escalating use of our legitimate concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms and rights, to attack academic institutions, and to otherwise go after the core values of our democracy that have been so inherent to Jewish safety and the rights and safety of all.
Martin: The Trump administration says these student activists are a threat to national security. You just don't think that's true?
Spitalnick: We can look at some of the specific cases and understand why that broad brush to paint these students with is frankly not exactly aligned with reality. Look at the Tufts University case, for example, where at this point, weeks since that student has been arrested, the only thing that the government has pointed to as to why she was arrested and detained is an op-ed in the student paper. And so we've seen hundreds of visa revocations and arrests over the last few months. They all involve different students in different scenarios, but it's very clear based on some of these higher profile cases, that fundamental rights of due process and civil liberties have not been applied. And when we start selectively applying rights based on someone's views or identity, that's a slippery slope that makes us all unsafe.
Note: Federal immigration officers arrested Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk in March. Ozturk was in the U.S. on a student visa and had co-authored an opinion article criticizing the university's response to the war in Gaza.
Martin: There are other Jewish groups like the Zionist Organization of America that are applauding this decision to deport these students. They say that this does enhance the safety of Jewish students and faculty and people at these institutions. Is it your view that these folks just have it wrong or that they just don't represent kind of the mainstream of thinking in the community?
Spitalnick: Our coalition represents the overwhelming majority of American Jews. It includes the conservative reform reconstructionist movements and a variety of other organizations that are representative of mainstream American Jewry.
I've been spending the last few months on the road with the Jews across the country, and the overwhelming majority have deep seated concerns about what's happening, both because we know antisemitism is real and it needs to be addressed constructively and productively, and because these real concerns should not be exploited to undermine the core democratic norms and values that have kept us safe.
The radio version of this interview was produced by Taylor Haney.
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