The Biden administration is shutting down Republican demands to deport college students hostile to Israel’s cause as it attempts to walk a fine line between protecting “free speech” and “denouncing antisemitism.”

“We’re always going to denounce antisemitism,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said at the daily briefing on Monday. “But at the same time, people have the right to peacefully protest.” Her backing of First Amendment rights — a rare embrace of this constitutional freedom from Washington’s left-leaning leaders — follows hardline Republican demands to revoke the student visas of pro-Palestinian protesters. 

“You don’t have to agree with every sentiment as expressed in a free country like this to stand by the idea of the First Amendment and the idea of peaceful protest,” the White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, said of allegedly pro-Hamas student demonstrators across America’s most elite campuses who cheered for the terrorists’ massacre of more than a thousand people on October 7. “I’ll leave it at that.”

Senators Rubio, Cotton, and Hawley have led the charge in demanding accountability for pro-Palestinian student groups. Mr. Cotton, for one, urged the Department of Homeland Security to promptly deport foreign nationals, especially those on student visas, who have celebrated Hamas’s attacks. “These fifth-columnists,” he said in a letter last week, “have no place in the United States.”

Republican presidential hopefuls have also been advocating for student deportations as a showcase of their commitment to the Israeli cause. President Trump said at a campaign event last week that he would, if elected president again, revoke the visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners” enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities. 

Governor DeSantis also chimed in. For students who support Hamas, he said on “The Guy Benson Show” last week, “you don’t have a right to be here on a visa. You don’t have a right to be studying in the United States.”

America has long been the top destination for international students, welcoming one million in the 2021-22 school year following a dramatic dip in enrollment during the pandemic. Columbia University, which has emerged as a locus of pro-Palestinian sentiment since October 7, has the third-largest foreign student population, boasting more than 16,000 active students from abroad, according to the most recent data from 2020. 

Although international students do not enjoy the full privileges of American citizens, they do benefit from due process and cannot be deported without it. As the legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Joseph Cohn, previously told the Sun, the Supreme Court has ruled that people lawfully in America have constitutional rights. 

There is precedent for a crackdown on student ties to terrorism. In the decade after the 9/11 attacks, the Department of State revoked about 60,000 U.S. visas for a variety of reasons, including suspected links to terrorism. One of the 19 hijackers came to the United States on a student visa, while the rest arrived on tourist or business visas. 

The attacks on America two decades ago led to a stricter immigration system focused on national security and wary of foreign nationals from adversarial nations. College students, though, appear more sympathetic to the latest terrorist threat in the Middle East. “After 9/11, I don’t think you had students signing letters, praising what had happened there,” Mr. DeSantis said last week. “Now they’re falling all over themselves to try to glorify Hamas terrorists.”

Asked on Monday whether President Biden views anti-Israel protests on college campuses as antisemitism, Ms. Jean-Pierre said he “has been very clear” in his pledge to protect Jewish and Arab Americans on campuses and “on denouncing any violence.” She shifted the conversation away from Jewish students by stating that “Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.” 

“It is appalling,” Senator Blackburn asserted in a post on X, “that the White House press secretary cannot answer the question of rising antisemitism across the USA.” Other critics took to social media to denounce Ms. Jean-Pierre’s comments, which did not refer to particular instances on college campuses but instead insisted on the importance of the First Amendment.

“A peaceful protest is really part of our democracy,” she said, “being able for folks to be able to express their feelings.”