Foreign agitators who have who staged violent protests on US college campuses, cheering on the Hamas pogrom of October 7 and terrorizing Jewish students have no legal right to remain in the United States, according to Heritage Foundation legal scholar Hans von Spakovsky.
Many of those who vandalized and destroyed property and buildings and blocked access to classes and dormitories, were neither American citizens nor even students. In reality, they were engaged in pro-terrorist activities, roaming throughout the country to mobilize support for Hamas, which the United States designated a terrorist group in 1997.
Yet, for more than a year, President Biden’s Justice Department refused to prosecute any of these cases, Von Spakovsky told a Jewish Policy Center webinar on Thursday. The Justice Department, he added, has authority to act against pro-Hamas thugs on campus under the Enforcement Act of 1870. That measure, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses Grant, gave federal prosecutors authority to target the Ku Klux Klan and its masked marauders who were terrorizing, assaulting and killing Black Americans.
Today, this law is codified at 18 USC Section 241, and is particularly applicable to Hamas backers because of their proclivity for hiding behind masks. All of the masked Hamas terror supporters infesting US college campuses were “in disguise” and therefore subject to prosecution for hindering other students from getting an education.
Under Section 241, violators are subject to heavy fines and up to 10 years in prison. The Trump administration has begun identifying these people and revoking their visas.
“All foreign students should have their visas revoked,” von Spakovsky said. “They should also be criminally prosecuted for threatening, dangerous behavior.”
