Under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism, Trump’s team goes full rogue. The bigger goal is purging America of liberal thought.

Trump is criminalizing free speech in the name of national security, moving to deport student protesters, gut universities, jail critics, and silence the media. What do we do?

[Note: This post on 3.15 has been updated on 3.17 to include a link to a book resource on fighting anti-Semitism, and update in case of Dr. Rasha Alamein’s weekend deportation.. Links added. - ac]

This past week we saw Trump and his top aides move to embrace overt tyranny, symbolized by the expanding ICE manhunt of Columbia university student protesters of Israel and US support for its decimation of Gaza, including the warrantless arrest and jailing of Green Card-holder Mahmoud Khalil, coupled with Trump’s warning that many more arrests and deportations will follow – all under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism. Trump calls them all de facto supporters of Hamas – and, by extension, “terrorist sympathizers,” – no nuance at all. Nor does ICE need a warrant to arrest or any evidence to back the charge, apparently. The message is clear: anyone protesting US Mideast policy is a proxy terrorist – an enemy of the state. We have now stepped over the precipice into full tyranny.

We also saw Secretary of State Marco Rubio launch a “Catch and Revoke” surveillance effort using a Shadow Dragon AI program and SocialNet software to scan data and social media accounts of US students on over 200 websites. That move builds on an early list of 30 student names compiled by the pugnacious far-right Zionist members of Betar, who scoured videos shot of campus protests and use software recognition to identify protesters, then gave Trump’s team the results. Betar proudly takes credit for Khalil’s arrest. That’s how ICE moved to revoke the student visa of a Fulbright recipient, Ranjani Srinivasan, who managed to escape to Canada before being arrested and deported – a “dystopian nightmare,” she told reporters afterward.

Columbia U Fulbright recipient Ranjani Srinivasan

fled to Canada to avoid an ICE arrest -

It’s probably how and why a Rhode Island doctor at Brown Medicine named Rasha Alawieh, 34, was blocked from re-entering the US at Boston’s Logan airport last Thursday after visiting her parents in Lebanon. She was put on a plane to Paris, despite having an HB-1 visa valid until mid-2027. Why? Maybe because Trump’s team hope to tar her with a brush of, by extension, supporting the Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah. All Lebanese students in America could become suspect now, by extension.

We also saw Trump move to expand his prior Muslim ban, and weaponize the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, targeting more immigrants from origin countries deemed enemies of the US. He also personally went to the Justice Department to call for his opponents to be jailed. His regime also moved to shut down the Voice of America at the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), putting 1300 journalists and VOA staff on administrative leave, a move that guts Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

We also saw the FBI move to order Citibank officials to freeze the bank accounts of four US nonprofits who’d gotten Biden-era EPA climate grants for “possible criminal violations”: Habitat for Humanity, the Appalachian Community Capital Corporation, the Coalition for Green Capital, and the DC Green Bank. That move sent a chill across non-profit America and the banking system. How protected are any of us if they can freeze our bank accounts on such grounds?

All these steps into autocracy closely mirror the detailed radical right playbook of Project 2025, although the first part – the weaponizing of anti-Semitism – also reflects the implementation of Project Esther, a sister radical Christian nationalist blueprint for eliminating leftist thought and values from American public education.

A poster at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest, 2022

Orbán is Cheering — but there is a note of hope….

All of the above also represents a rapid implementation of the Viktor Orbán playbook of autocracy in Hungary, where Orbán and his Fidesz cronies have served as advisors to help develop and now implement Project 2025 as a guidebook for Orbán-style US illiberalism.

For that reason, before we dig into the escalating free speech clampdown, I wanted to highlight a note of hope that may also put our US moment of declining democracy into context. In 15 years, Orbán has managed to bring Hungary under his very repressive thumb, and in that same time, Hungary’s battered citizenry has managed to claw its way back to form a powerful opposition movement. It did that even as Orbán went after immigrants and trans people, feminists, and racial minorities; arrested and jailed his critics including journalists; captured the courts and Congress; amended Hungary’s Constitution; put billionaire cronies in charge of state institutions; and privatized and pilfered the state coffers. A regime of kleptocracy, then, one that Elon Musk and his tech titan allies and bros in DOGE appear keen to mimic.

What cheered me, a lot, was the sight of 100,000 Hungarians swelling the streets of Budapest yesterday, in a massive show of civic solidarity to demand the ouster of Orbán.

Over 100,000 Hungarians rallied in Budapest to demand Orbán ouster as Fidesz falls in the polls

Photo: Reuters

The fact is, Orbán and Fidesz are falling….

Hungary’s Fidesz party has now fallen in the polls behind the opposition Tisza party, led by Peter Magyar, a government bureaucrat who unexpectedly stepped up to lead the embattled citizenry back toward democracy. The time has come for Hungary to reclaim that mantle in 2026, they shouted at the mass rally. In response, Orbán now vows to go after a “shadow army” of NGOs, journalists, judges and politicians he claims are funded by George Soros. But Hungarians aren’t cowed; they’re refusing to stay quiet.

That’s the lesson I want to take for today, to inspire us. We should not endure 15 years of autocracy to learn it, either. We have the playbook, let’s learn to fight it.

Project Esther: A Christian Zionist Manifesto

To date, Project Esther has garnered comparatively little major media attention compared to Project 2025, though The Guardian, The Atlantic, Politico, and The Nation, among others, have covered it, along with Substacks like Zeteo, and nonprofits including Political Research Associates. Project Esther was released last fall as a 10, 000-word manifesto of sorts by the National Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, composed of US Christian, but not Jewish groups, and launched in late 2023 shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel.

James Carafano is leading Project Esther for the Heritage Foundation, where he is Senior Counselor to the President and an E.W. Richardson Fellow who focuses on national security issues and often speaks on cyber warfare. Years ago, he was an adjunct professor at Hillsdale College, an institution identified with the militant Catholic group, Opus Dei. Heritage leader Kevin Roberts has also been linked to Opus Dei, as has Leonard Leo, the big funder of Project 2025, and a number of top Trump officials. (See my Special Report on the links between Project 2025, Catholic activists, and Opus Dei here). As I said at the top, it’s important to connect the dots and look at the bigger picture.

In a word, Project Esther equates any criticism of Israel or Zionism with anti-Semitism. It labels critics to be members of “Hamas Support Organizations” and a broader “Hamas Support Network,” making them supporters of terrorism by association, given that Hamas is classified as a terrorist group by the US. Project Esther calls for prosecution of pro-Palestinian groups and banning them from campuses. It proposes using novel legal instruments, including the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and laws against hate speech, terrorism, and immigration. It lists a long set of goals to eliminate this solidarity movement from American society and public discourse.

Several US Cabinet leaders who identify as Christian nationalists and Christian Zionists are involved, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Russell Vought – also Christian Zionists. Many in Project 2025’s orbit are Christian nationalists who hold an end-times belief that Jews must occupy Israel as a precondition for the future return of Christ; once he does, the Jews must convert to be saved. They support Israel’s settler movement on those grounds, too. Never mind that Jews, like Muslims, are viewed as apostates by Christian true believers.

The bigger picture that’s unfolding then, is US Christian theocracy, slipped in under the cover of protecting Israel.

98 protesters were arrested in a March 13th Jewish Voice for Peace action inside Trump Towner in Manhattan to protest Mahmoud Khalili’s illegal arrest - and those targeting other students

Photo: Yuki Iwamura for Associated Press

The larger target: progressive America

The larger target of Project Esther is secular and progressive America, including liberal humanitarian values. It seeks to replace liberal education and faculty at America’s universities with radical Christian conservative ideas and voices. It seeks to criminalize dissent, using anti-Semitism as a proxy weapon to label criticism of Trump’s agenda, equating it with a threat to America’s safety and national security.

Right-wing scholars also argue – falsely -- that the same lefty, socialist groups funding the US Palestinian solidarity movement were behind the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and they blame Soros for everything they can. They are using the anti-Semitism campaign as a proxy and wedge to go after the US progressive groups and root out those they brand as Communists and dangerous socialists, labels they put on the BLM. Under the banner of fighting anti-Semitism, they back the secret surveillance of Trump critics, and hope to weaponize RICO and FARA and other laws to further criminalize dissent. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and other students is but a stepping-stone to a sought clampdown on free speech and progressive education in America.

It’s also a rich irony – one of many – that the Task Force is made up mainly of right-wing Christian groups, to the point that it claims it can better represent the issue than Jewish groups can. Even the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League and journalists at Slate and Haaretz have called out its failure to address right-wing antisemitism. Some Task Force members also have histories of anti-Semitism, something the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), and the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center, among watchdog groups, closely track. Task Force members include hate groups such as the anti-LGBTQ+ Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America.

Recommended: Safety Through Solidarity, for context on the current moment.

Last week I listened to a terrific webinar organized by PRA on the weaponizing of anti-Semitism with guests PRA’s Ben Lorber, and Shane Burley, a Portland-based author of books on fascism. They released a book last year, Safety Through Solidarity, about fighting anti-Semitism that I recommend, along with PRA’s very good analyses of this topic. They talked about the Trump team’s strategic manipulation of anti-Semitism to stamp out dissent. Both are Jewish and experts in the topic. Project Esther, they pointed out, is a Christian nationalist project that is manipulating the issue of Israel and Jewish identity to secretly advance conservative Christian theocracy. The current crackdown being done in the name of protecting Jewish students and defending national security is yielding the opposite, making the political climate on and off campuses less safe for Jewish students. The gutting of DEI courses, cuts in funding, courses, and faculty harm Jewish and other students.

They suggested activists educate themselves about how to combat anti-Semitism via trainings and resources from progressive groups such as Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, among others.

Targeting Deans and Donors

Project Esther’s strategy is multi-pronged. Task Force members have pressured conservative wealthy donors and alumni to withhold funds from select private universities, and called for removing the deans at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Barnard and several California universities on ground of anti-Semitism. Project Esther identified 21 universities with professors they wanted to fire. It also wanted to silence “the Hamas Caucus”: 12 House Democrats supportive of Palestinian Rights.^[i] (see list at end). Project Esther members aren’t happy with Jewish Senator Bernie Sanders (I–VT) either, or Senators Chris Van Hollen (D–MD), Elizabeth Warren (D–MA) and others critical of US Middle East policy.

Last year, the pro-Israeli lobbying group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), sunk over a billion dollars^[ii] into attacks against US Democratic leaders, using the anti-Semitism label to lead their well-funded attacks, including routing ad funds through a super PAC, United Democracy. AIPAC is credited with helping to defeat Rep. Cori Bush in her primary re-election bid last fall, one of the members of a progressive House “Squad.” Project Esther’s members also helped pressure university boards to fire their deans, by pulling funding.

Project Esther took shape amid the growing campus protests in 2023 and 2024 that saw students expelled, their university privileges suspended, protest encampments forcibly dismantled, and faculty threatened with expulsion. The boards of several universities began capitulating to right-wing GOP pressure. Donors pulled major funding; hearings were held. Last August, three Columbia deans were fired for alleged “troubling” anti-Semitic texts; more recently, longtime law professor Katherine Franke was recently let go there. Harvard’s President Claudine Gay, Columbia University’s Minouche Shafik, Liz Magic at Penn were all essentially forced to resign after right-wing pressure campaigns that they failed to curb anti-semitism on their campuses. Other university leaders have faced a barrage of attacks including Chancellor Javier Reyes at the University of Massachusetts, and MIT President Sally Kornbluth.

It’s also true that anti-Semitism has increased in the US and globally, amid the rage directed at Israel’s Netanyahu regime. Last September, the FBI released data showing an annual surge of anti-Jewish hate crimes, up by almost two-thirds, from 1,122 documented incidents to 1,832. Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. Meanwhile, GPAHE and watchdog groups tracked an explosion of online activity by white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups posting anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments. There have been violent clashes with student protesters, including those involving Betar members, spoiling for a physical fight, and by the Proud Boys. Betar edits its footage to produce disinfo videos and shares them with the Trump team.

I don’t want to minimize the fears or concerns or incidents of anti-Semitism raised by students on US campuses; they speak their truth. The issue of Israel remains polarizing; the daily images of what the International Criminal Court has deemed a genocide in Gaza are horrible and enraging. So is footage of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and those who died in captivity. But I will note that the pro-Palestinian student protests have been, by and large, peaceful, and the movement has committed itself to nonviolent principles and has repeated, protest after protest, that opposition to Netanyahu does not spell anti-Semitism. The movement is led by Jewish students who take pains to state their organized opposition to the Netanyahu regime and militant Zionism, while embracing their own Jewish identity and culture. That’s also what enrages Betar: they don’t want Jewish identity associated with an embrace of peace with Palestinians.

Campus pro-Palestinian solidary encampments sprouted on many campuses in 2024 but were dismantled as university leaders saw right-wing donors pull funding and push to replace them.

Photo: The Conversation

Less media attention has gone to the spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes and incidents. A few days ago, the Council for Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a report showing a 7.4 percent jump in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents – a total of 8,658 incidents in 2024 – the highest number since CAIR formed in 1996. Many were complaints of job discrimination, followed by immigration and asylum, education, and hate crimes. Among the latter are violent attacks against Palestinian adults and young children in US, including two Israeli visitors in Florida a suspect mistakenly took for Palestinians.

While Khalil and others were getting arrested or surveilled by ICE, Trump moved to pull hundreds of dollars from Columbia, and warned 60 universities that they may face penalties, based on investigations into anti-Semitism now unfolding on college campuses. I expect the Betar team is popping champagne. Other pro-Israel groups in the Project Esther orbit are also engaging Jewish communities to help spy and gather intel on visiting Muslim. On February 28^th, the Task Force announced it would visit ten university campuses^[iii] that it claims saw incidents of anti-Semitism since October 23. They are led by Trump AG Pam Bondi. Meanwhile, Trump Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, also a Christian nationalist, is moving forward with her commitment to eliminate the DOE and promote privatization and school waivers, including for Christian schools.

Project Esther’s James Carafano admires Orbán’s autocracy

Photo: Hungarian Conservative

Yesterday I came across a rather extraordinary quote by Project Esther’s current leader, James Carafano. Like Kevin Roberts, JD Vance, and others in Project 2025’s orbit, Carafano admires Viktor Orbán and has often visited Hungary. In an interview, he had this to say about Fidesz and Orbán’s leadership:

“...Look, this is a government that has won elections because it has listened to the people and what they want, and it’s tried to deliver on that. You can argue it’s not perfect. You can argue they don’t have all the answers. But you can’t argue that they aren’t focused on delivering on the issues that people care about and that they’re not delivering. So it’s about clarifying where you are on issues and about developing that capacity to govern.”

I got stuck on that second phrase: You can argue it’s not perfect. I thought, how can people live with themselves, with any degree of good faith about themselves? It’s not perfect? Seriously? No, James. Orbán moved to crush his country, hurting millions, exiling others, while enriching himself and his corrupt circle a la Putin. Perfect would be Putin, I assume, for Carafano. Perfect might be complete domination of a people by an autocrat. Is that it?

As deportations and police state tactics escalate, what can we do?

Days ago, Betar also told reporters it will continue to work on deportation, and expects naturalized citizens to be picked up within the month. It was pushing ICE to arrest another Columbia student, Mohsen Mahdawi. On Friday, a Palestinian student named Leqaa Kordia was reportedly arrested and detained by immigration officials for allegedly overstaying her expired student visa. The list has likely grown since then.

Countering the Alien Enemies Act - a planned move by Stephen Miller

Trump’s new directive to invoke the Alien Enemies Act represents a major escalation; it hasn’t been used since World War 2. Trump wants to authorize expedited removal of all Venezuelan citizens 14 and older deemed to be members of the Venezuelan Tren de Agua prison gang who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. But the Act would likely allow many others to be deported, say critics. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a ruling (temporary restraining order, or TRO) blocking Trump’s action (for two weeks, in response to a Democracy Forward-ACLU request to stop it. He ordered planes already in the air to turn around and return. The planes flew on, defying the judge’s order on the ground that two planes were in international waters. You can read the legal complaint here and the TRO memo here.

An Axios story reveals that Trump Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (who led Trump 1.0’s immigration bans and jailing of children in cages at the border) was behind the deportation move, working with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem. Trump’s legal team will now parry back. but experts predict the case is headed to the Supreme Court — a major test of presidential power vs. democratic safeguards. As Trump critic and national security attorney Mark S. Zaid told Axios, “Court order defied. First of many as I've been warning and start of true constitutional crisis.”

Legal groups are newly steeling themselves to deal with the anticipated entry bans and providing guidance for would-be travelers into or out of the US. They’re creating a pool of vetted pro-bono volunteer lawyers with expertise to represent non-citizen activists and are calling on lawyers across the US to help them. Along with CAIR, they include Muslim Advocates, the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) Project, Project ANAR, the National Immigration Project, the New York Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).

As Trump promises more arrests, resistance to the crackdown on free speech has also multiplied. Legal and immigration groups in the Democracy 2025 network, along with educator’s networks and unions, have quickly organized legal defense and support for vulnerable students, faculty, and immigrants, while activists have multiplied pressure on Congressional representatives and taken to the streets. The student protest movement, while threatened, are also leading in the streets.

If An Agent Knocks, free CCR pamphlet

Image: Center for Constitutional Rights

Hours after Khalil’s arrest, his lawyer was advocating to get him released; Khalil has now asked the courts to protect him from deportation. In Canada, Ranjani Srinivasan immediately spoke to the media, and has gotten legal and global public support.

From Lebanon, deported Dr. Rasha Alawieh is also making the rounds of media, and lawyering up. Homeland Security officials have claimed Alawieh is viewed as a terrorist sympathizer based pictures on her personal cell phone that she erased before her visit to her parents. They show her attendance at a funeral in Lebanon on February 23rd for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, during the time of her visit, states the DHS. The Boston Globe reported on March 17th that she also had pictures of Hezbollah “fighters and martyrs” on her phone. Alameih said she deleted the photos to avoid being flagged by US customs officials, and defended her interest in Nasrallah as a matter of religious support, not political or of Hezbollah.

Legal groups including Palestine Legal are taking urgent actions to prevent more warrantless ICE arrests. Their website has online links to report incidents or alert lawyers of any unfolding attacks.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is also tracking attacks on dissent. Along with litigation, CCR provides legal training about rights and protective actions for activists and communities and offers a free booklet If An Agent Knocks, and a 2012 one, Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in Twenty-First-Century America. (CCR was also a co-counsel in Columbia U Prof. Franke’s legal case related to her support of pro-Palestinian student protesters.).

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is also an excellent resource with news, guidance, and services to support individuals and groups facing free speech attacks. FIRE offers toolkits for individuals and activists who want to learn how to protect free speech in this climate of intensifying repression.

What else?

US activists and student leaders are urging people to speak out to protest the attacks against free speech and our constitutional right to dissent and to support students facing this McCarthyite backlash. There are many individual actions to take, including joining local deportation defense teams and attending Town Halls and community meetings to get informed about local advocacy to fight back. What’s happened to Khalil and immigrant students could happen to any of us tomorrow, unless we unite at the local level and in a national show of public resistance to the new McCarthyism. As I see it, we are all Hungarians. Let us act in unity of purpose.

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^[i] Rashida Tlaib (D–MI); Ilhan Omar (D–MN); Cori Bush (D–MO);REF Jamaal Bowman (D–NY);REF Summer Lee (D–PA); Ayana Pressley (D–MA); Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY); Greg Casar (D–TX); Andre Carson (D–IN); Hank Johnson (D–GA); Jan Schakowsky (D–IL); Mark Pocan (D–WI); and Pramila Jayapal (D–WA).

^[ii] Inskeep, Steve. “A pro-Israel group is challenging ‘The Squad.’ Why did it sit out Ilhan Omar’s primary election?” National Public Radio, August 14, 2024.

^[iii] The ten universities are: Columbia; George Washington U; Harvard; Johns Hopkins; New York University; Northwestern; the University of California; Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; University of Minnesota; University of Southern California.