A federal judge reportedly got into a "heated back-and-forth" with a State Department official in a Boston court Friday over the Trump administration’s loose definition of antisemitism, and how it uses it to revoke visas of international students lawfully in the country.
Speaking on behalf of the State Department was John Armstrong, a top official at the agency’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, who has been tasked with helping vet foreign students and their social media posts for potential visa revocations. The vetting process includes scrubbing through visa holders’ social media and flagging material deemed antisemitic.
Where presiding Judge William Young took issue was Armstrong’s inability to narrowly define what constituted antisemitism.
In Friday’s proceedings, Armstrong admitted that comments calling for “limiting military aid to Israel,” or “denouncing Zionism” could all factor in his agency’s decision to revoke a student’s visa, The New York Times reported.
“In my understanding, antisemites will sometimes try to hide their views and say they’re not against Jews, they’re just against Israel, which is a farcical argument, in my mind,” Armstrong said. “It’s just a dodge.”
Young flat out rejected Armstrong’s assessment, however, stating bluntly that his description of antisemitism was very much at odds with the First Amendment’s protection of political speech.
“Criticism of the state of Israel, use of the words that I mentioned, does not – it’s political speech – it does not constitute pro-Hamas support,” Young said. “Pro-Hamas support has to be something more than that.”
The Trump administration has arrested several foreign students for what it argues is antisemitic conduct, perhaps most notably Mahmoud Khalil, who helped stage protests at Columbia University calling for the school to divest from Israel amid its violent siege on Gaza. Khalil was never charged with a crime, but was arrested in March and detained for months awaiting deportation.
Other examples include Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested after co-writing an op-ed critical of Israel in March, or Georgetown University student Badar Khan Suri, arrested and accused of “promoting antisemitism” on social media.
“I cannot remember a concrete piece of guidance,” Armstrong went on to admit. “It seems to me, there may have been some, but I do not remember a concrete cable where I can say, ‘this cable defines antisemitism.’”
