According to unsealed court documents, the Trump administration relied on an anti-Palestinian doxxing site to identify student protesters to target.
The testimony came from Peter Hatch, a senior official with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations during a Boston court case challenging Trump’s deportation policy.
According to Hatch, the Department of Homeland Security developed a “tiger team” of intelligence analysts to compile files on about 100 foreign students and scholars. Information on almost all of those students was listed on the pro-Israel doxxing website Canary Mission, which has targeted student activists for years.
Hatch says the team was necessary because they were instructed to review files on the thousands of students that have been assembled by Canary Mission.
“A normal unit or section or group of analysts operating in a normal organizational construct couldn’t handle that workload,” explained Hatch.
“Many of the names or even most of the names came from that website, but we were getting names and leads from many different websites,” he continued. “We received information on the same protesters from multiple sources, but Canary Mission was the most inclusive. The lists came in from all different directions.”
In March, the New York Times published an article on the “shadowy group”, after Canary Mission unveiled a list of “foreign nationals” in response to the Trump administration’s executive order on combating antisemitism.
Canary Mission told the paper that it had not shared information on potential deportation targets with the White House. “Our investigations of anti-U.S. and antisemitic extremists are all publicly available on our website,” said the group in a statement.
However, many suspected that the group had a connection to ICE, as Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk was kidnapped by authorities shortly after the website doxxed her for engaging in “anti-Israel activism.”
The group had also created a file on Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist who became the first student detained during Trump’s crackdown.
Canary Mission is not a tax-exempt nonprofit in the United States, which means it doesn’t have to share information about its funding or leadership. However, a 2021 Jewish Currents report revealed that philanthropist Michael Leven donated $50,000 to the group in 2018.
“The Jewish mainstream looks at Canary Mission and it makes them uncomfortable. The idea of trying to ruin students’ lives is uncomfortable. But the bottom line is it comes out of the Jewish mainstream,” Foundation for Middle East Peace president Lara Friedman told Jewish Currents. “Shutting down critics of Israel and criticism of Israel on campuses is in the mainstream. [Leven’s donation] is one more piece of evidence of how mainstream it is.”
In a recent piece at Mondoweiss, writer and organizer Carrie Zaremba classifies Canary Mission as part of an “rhizomatic anti-antisemitism industry” that emerged in the 2010s.
“These organizations share a common objective of criminalizing and delegitimizing Palestine solidarity activism by portraying it as foreign-backed, antisemitic, and dangerous,” writes Zaremba. “They comb through social media, compile anonymous dossiers, and collaborate with law enforcement to surveil and suppress Palestine organizing, especially on campuses.”
Trump and the Supreme Court have bit-off more than they can chew. George Washington’s initial address to Congress pointed out that as a minimum, “subjects” here (not citizens) were guaranteed the same rights as other freemen according to the English Bill of Rights 1689 and the Habeas Corpus Acts 1679 and the Acts of 1697. Most of us looking at that historical list just want to know why we don’t even have legal standing to demand those same rights that subjects possessed back when they still had 17th century Kings?
If a 17th century papist magistrate, like Amy Comey-Barrett, had ruled that an upstanding American lawyer/citizen and her Nicaraguan spouse had no right to live together in the United States, or to even be told why not, after a long, three year wait for an explanation as to why their immigration application had been rejected, Barret would probably been impeached, if not hanged, drawn, and quartered. The lower courts determined her husband had never been convicted of any crime. But the US consular official had accused him of having a possible connection to Tren de Aragua, without providing any evidence. The appeals court agreed aliens applying to immigrate to join their spouse with no criminal record cannot be processed by a Star Chamber under color of law. But SCOTUS reversed and said complete innocence was not one of the narrow exceptions that would require judicial review (hint: that’s not what Section 242 of Title 18 says). So, citizens in the United States have no right to live together here or legal standing to ask any questions. See: Supreme Court Rules That There Is No Constitutional Right to Having an Alien Spouse Admitted to the United States
Jefferson’s initial address made it clear that the Constitution had nothing to say about the issue of open immigration, which was still a given. Alexander Hamilton was a racist immigrant (not a Disney movie character) who unsuccessfully advocated for restrictions based upon birth, class, and social standing that were never included in the delegated powers. See:
Judges keep blocking Trump’s policies despite US Supreme Court injunction curbs — Reuters
Movement to nominate Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 to Human Rights Council Francesca Albanese for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Not only because she has used her position to report the truth about the genocide and starvation of the Palestinian people but because the Trump administration has now put her on his hit list. More than likely because Netanyahu ordered Trump to do so.