After ICE agents detained Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, Ali—an international student at an American university—installed security cameras outside his home. The ability to document the interaction, if the federal government were to show up at his door, helped him feel safer. Ali is a pro-Palestinian organizer, and he’s already been doxxed. (That’s why he asked to go by a pseudonym.) When Ali first heard the news of Khalil’s arrest, he let out a nervous laugh. The fear sank in later that evening, when he talked to his lawyer and looked into the eyes of his partner, an American citizen; she teared up. “Their goal is not just to go after us, but the people we love,” he says. Ali knew he wanted to fight back, and continue speaking at protests, even if it meant risking his ability to live in America. “An unjust deportation is something I’m willing to live with in the face of not giving up my morality,” he says.
Ali is one of thousands of student activists in the U.S. who fear that the federal government could punish them for what should be constitutionally protected speech. It wouldn’t be unprecedented; the U.S. has a long history of using its laws to crack down on the pro-Palestinian movement—and imprison, detain, or deport its supporters.
The federal government is currently prosecuting Mahmoud Khalil and many other pro-Palestinian students under an obscure law: the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows noncitizens to be deported if they threaten “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” The Trump administration hasn’t even accused many of these students of a crime—sparking concerns that the government has violated free speech rights and due process. This law notes that “[a]ny alien who … endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization” is “ineligible to receive [a] visa and ineligible to be admitted to the United States.” The federal government has often, without evidence, attempted to associate pro-Palestinian advocacy with terrorism, specifically linking it to Hamas, which is legally considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a March 9 post on X.
This conflation of advocacy for Palestine with terrorism doesn’t surprise Ali. “It’s a story as old as time, in an oppressive regime, to label political opponents and organizations as terrorism,” he says. For him, the administration’s “slanderous allegations” prove that the Trump administration is scared of a shift in public opinion toward being more critical of American support for Israel. “It’s about controlling the conversation. … It’s precisely because they know we have a very compelling argument, and it’s a threat to the status quo.”
ICE’s recent detention and deportation of noncitizen pro-Palestinian students has been part of a wider crackdown on the pro-Palestinian movement by the federal government—and it goes back decades.
Even before Secretary Rubio boasted about revoking more than 300 student visas, his department announced an AI-driven “catch and revoke” program to identify activists. The Trump administration passed broad executive orders threatening deportation or criminal prosecution of noncitizens considered to be “hostile actors … who provide aid, advocacy, or support for foreign terrorists,” as well as those acting in a way that is perceived as anti-Semitic. President Donald Trump made clear that he wanted to throw student protesters out of the country on the campaign trail last year; he referred to pro-Palestine protesters and their supporters as “pro-jihadist” and “Hamas sympathizers.”
Republicans in Congress and the president’s allies have reinforced this message—without evidence—that student protests and pro-Palestinian organizations support terrorism. In February, Elon Musk referred to several Muslim and pro-Palestinian nonprofits that received funding from USAID as being “terrorist organizations.” Last May, the North Carolina Republican representative Virginia Foxx characterized universities as “forums for promoting terrorism”; in July, the state’s attorney general opened a civil investigation into American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) after allegations that the nonprofit raised money for terror groups. In October 2023, the head of Florida’s state university system banned campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP); in a letter, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote that it is a felony under Florida law to “knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization.” He pointed to a toolkit released by the National SJP, which referred to Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as “the resistance.” The ACLU responded in a letter of its own, noting that this is constitutionally protected speech, given there is no evidence it was published in coordination with Hamas.
The government isn’t the only entity accusing Palestine supporters of promoting terrorism. In dozens of colleges around the country, nearly two hundred leaders received a letter from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)—a pro-Israel civil rights group—urging them to investigate Students for Justice in Palestine chapters for violating material-support-for-terrorism laws. The ADL did not cite any proof beyond rhetorical support of Hamas.
Survivors of Hamas’s October 7 attack, including Israeli military soldiers and their loved ones, have sued Palestinian advocacy groups at least twice under the Antiterrorism Act, arguing that they aided Hamas; this law allows American citizens affected by international terrorism attacks to sue anyone considered to be helping the perpetrator of the attack. In March, nine American and Israeli citizens filed a lawsuit in federal court against the organizers of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including Mahmoud Khalil and Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Some of the plaintiffs are IDF reservists; one recently fought in Gaza. They accused some defendants of having prior knowledge of Hamas’s attack based on the timing of social media posts; in one that they point to as possible proof, Columbia SJP posted “We are back!!” on its Instagram, minutes before Hamas’s October 7 attack. Almost a year earlier, in May, a different group of survivors of October 7 filed a civil suit against National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) and AMP. “They are not innocent advocacy groups, but rather the propaganda arm of a terrorist organization operating in plain sight,” the complaint stated.
ARRESTED FOR AID WORK
This is not the first time anti-terror rhetoric and laws have been wielded against the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States. No one knows it better, perhaps, than the two men still in prison for their work with the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. Shukri Abu-Baker and Ghassan Elashi were convicted, in 2008, on charges that the charity they ran provided material support to a terrorist organization. So were three of their coworkers, who have since been released. Abu-Baker and Elashi are only 16 years into 65-year prison sentences.
Abu-Baker passes the time by writing poetry and prose inside a Texas prison: “What law of the land or that of heavens did we violate, when we put together baskets of wheat, oil, and rice for hunger-stricken men, women, and children?” Exposure to tear gas in prison has weakened his lungs. As for Elashi, he has memorized the Qur’an in solitary confinement. The pair now have 11 grandchildren between them.
The Holy Land Foundation focused on funding relief operations in Palestine, including the provision of food, water, clothing, and tents for civilians, and support for medical facilities. The nonprofit, which was headquartered in Texas, also sent charitable funds to Bosnia, Albania, Chechnya, Turkey, and parts of Africa in the 1990s, according to a 2018 book by human rights activist Miko Peled. He wrote in “Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five” that the charity also helped out domestically; it was the first Texas-based organization to respond to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and also provided food assistance to American households.
In the months after 9/11, the Bush administration declared the Holy Land Foundation—the largest Muslim American charity at the time—to be a domestic terror organization. Federal agents raided the charity’s offices, and in December 2001, the Treasury shut down the foundation. The government relied on an executive order that banned financial transactions with “specially designated global terrorists,” which included Hamas.
In 2004, the FBI arrived at the Holy Land leaders’ homes—traumatizing their families. Abu-Baker’s daughter shouted at the agents to stop, but they threatened to arrest her, too, according to Peled’s book.
The first criminal trial against the “Holy Land Five” began in 2007; the defendants all pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors for the federal government had argued that the local Zakat committees the charity gave money to were influenced by Hamas, even though USAID funded the same grassroots groups. Edward Abington, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem from 1993 to 1997, never heard anything suggesting that Hamas got credit for the services received from the Zakat committees. The case ended in a mistrial with no guilty verdicts—marking a short-lived victory for the Holy Land Foundation.
In 2008, a second trial began. This time the federal government succeeded in accusing the Holy Land Foundation of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
“[The ‘material support statute’] recognizes that money is fungible, and that money in the hands of a terrorist organization—even if for so-called charitable purposes—supports that organization’s overall terrorist objectives,” the Department of Justice said in a statement. The U.S. never accused the Holy Land Foundation and its leaders of directly funding terrorism or Hamas. It didn’t need to. The government simply argued that the social programs the Holy Land Foundation helped pay for allowed Hamas to use more money for weapons. “It’s kind of astonishing that the case was successful, particularly because the American government acknowledged that the money was not going to a terrorist group, much less being misdirected to aid some terrorist plot,” said Michael German, a fellow in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.
A federal court sentenced Abu-Baker and four other leaders of the foundation to prison.
The Holy Land case raised concerns about the broad scope and lack of due process in federal laws used to prosecute terrorism: most notably, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). This law gives the Secretary of State the power to formally designate international groups as terrorist organizations, and defines the framework of material support for terrorism. It’s the most common criminal charge used in federal terrorism cases, and has often been used against Palestinian advocates already on the radar of pro-Israel groups. This “support” can include money, accommodation, training, weapons, advice, and assistance. Certain kinds of aid, including food, blankets, and clothing, can count, too. (The ACLU notes that even the Red Cross could easily be prosecuted under this definition of material support.) The government doesn’t have to prove that the groups accused of providing material support knew that their money is being used to further a terrorist group’s illegal activities; it only has to prove that the group knew that the entity they are accused of assisting is a designated terrorist organization or that it is engaged in terrorism.
That means the government didn’t need to prove that the Holy Land Foundation’s leaders knew about the alleged misuse of funds or that the money directly led to a terrorist attack. Whether the Holy Land Foundation opposed the terrorism in question, intended their money to be used for humanitarian purposes, and took precautions to ensure this, was irrelevant.
While judges can review classified evidence in material-support cases secretly, the accused party cannot view it at all. That means organizations accused of providing material support can’t meaningfully challenge the designation.
The prosecution of the Holy Land Five is the most high-profile example of the federal government’s use of anti-terror laws to crack down on a Muslim American charity. But it’s not the only one. In the early 2000s, the federal government shut down at least six Muslim American charities by labeling them as terrorist organizations, according to a 2009 ACLU report. It also raided the offices of at least six other Muslim American charities. Even though these six organizations were never formally labeled as terrorist entities, the publicity significantly disrupted their operations—two closed down—and contributed to a chilling effect on Muslim civil society.
This legal apparatus still exists. “The power to do what the Bush administration did in the early part of the aftermath of 9/11 could easily be repeated to target other groups,” German said. The Trump administration already has the ability to use these same anti-terror laws to crack down on his political opponents, including Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups.
However, it’s unclear to what extent Trump will rely on material support laws—given the effort required to build a case. “As terrible as the material support statute is, what we’ve seen so far in Trump’s second term is how quickly he can weaponize so many other laws that have been on the books just as long, if not longer,” said Darryl Li, an anthropology professor at the University of Chicago and the author of a 2024 report about the dangers of U.S. anti-terrorism laws.
A proposal in Congress could expand Trump’s legal arsenal and make it riskier for some nonprofits to operate. The “nonprofit killer bill”, as critics call it, cleared the House but failed to pass the Senate last year, when it was introduced as part of the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act (H.R. 9495). Republicans revived the measure, which would effectively gut nonprofits by stripping their tax status, on May 12, as part of Trump’s sweeping tax plan.
Banks and donors are unlikely to work with or fund a group with that designation. The measure would also create a new category called a “terrorist-supporting organization,” which refers to a group as having provided material support or resources to a terrorist group. The ADL was among several pro-Israel groups to back the original bill last year, although it called for “strong due process” measures in the final version.
The Origins of the Anti-Terror Apparatus Are in Palestine
In 1993, almost a decade before the federal government officially shut down the Holy Land Foundation, the ADL published a report accusing the foundation of supporting Hamas, according to Peled’s book. In 1994, the ADL launched a campaign demanding that the IRS strip the charity of its tax-exempt status. That campaign was supported by Chuck Schumer, then a representative from New York’s 9th District. Shukri, with the Holy Land Foundation, accused the ADL of feeling threatened by the charity and its ability to challenge the narrative on Palestine; that’s why the ADL protested the foundation with ads on the radio, buses, and billboards, he said, per Peled’s book.
After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the ADL and the American Jewish Committee rallied behind the creation of the material support law. Even though the attack was carried out by domestic extremists, the legislation focused exclusively on foreign organizations. The ADL, backed by about a dozen pro-Israel organizations, pressed lawmakers in a letter about their demand to “restrict fundraising, freeze assets, and deny access to the country for representatives of designated foreign terrorist organizations.” In advocating for the material support law, the ADL argued that “[t]here is no way to know whether these financial contributions go towards a kindergarten or terrorist activities.”
Congress followed through on the ADL’s demands—passing the bill into law in 1995 with bipartisan support. This moment feels similar. “They’re still doing it,” Li said. “In order to exploit the moment, you have to lay the groundwork—and they are always laying the groundwork.”
Congress has historically singled out Palestine in its creation of anti-terror laws, as documented in the 2024 report Li worked on, with Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights. The first mention of terrorism in federal law in 1969 was a requirement that UNRWA ensure no American money would go “to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army … or who has engaged in any act of terrorism.” This followed an impassioned speech by the bill’s sponsor, the New York Democrat Leonard Farbstein, who linked Palestinians with terrorism. “[UN] refugee camps now in the main have been taken over by the terrorists in the Middle East. … These camps are being used for training purposes, and the young children for whom the schools are being built and who are being fed and clothed are being trained as terrorists in these refugee camps.”
The Palestine Liberation Organization is the first and only nonstate group to have been labeled a terrorist organization by Congress—before the material support for terror law made the designation of foreign terrorist organizations a power of the Secretary of State. That 1987 law tried to close all PLO offices in the U.S. in the wake of the first Intifada.
The “Antiterrorism Act of 1992” allowed American citizens, including Zionist activists, to sue Palestinian organizations in the U.S. for acts of international terrorism; many claims were related to people allegedly harmed in the second Intifada. The measure required convicted defendants to pay triple damages, in addition to plaintiffs’ legal fees. Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights analyzed 447 cases from 1992 to 2020 and found that, in the first decade, nearly 63 percent of the cases were related to Palestine.
Congress then passed the material support law after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which was viewed at the time as the worst terrorist attack in American history.
In 2010, the Supreme Court upheld a broad interpretation of the law that allowed advocacy and humanitarian aid to fall under “material support” if it appeared to be “in coordination” with a foreign terrorist organization. That line is intentionally blurry, said Li, at the University of Chicago.
It’s unclear, for example, whether an American who translates a statement by Hamas and posts it on their Instagram is considered to be acting independently or in support of the group. Corey Saylor, the research and advocacy director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), described the tense legal discussions the organization had in 2014 before signing on to a letter by religious scholars condemning ISIS’s interpretation of Islam. “We had a two-hour debate with our attorneys because they were concerned that if you advise a terrorist to stop being a terrorist, you could be held liable for material support,” he said. “I remember feeling so frustrated that we had to have this conversation, and we ultimately ended up signing the letter, because it’s the right thing to do.”
Official reports and commissions by the government and independent groups have criticized the material support statute and the U.S.’s broader anti-terrorism strategy, too. The 9/11 Commission, an independent bipartisan group appointed by Congress, which operated from 2002 to 2004, raised “substantial civil liberty concerns.” They said Treasury officials acknowledged that after 9/11 “some of the evidentiary foundations for the early designations were quite weak,” and the haste to designate charities after 9/11 “might [have] result[ed] in a high level of false designations.”
A 2005 independent review of terrorism financing laws by the Government Accountability Office found flaws in the Treasury’s process of blocking assets and labeling groups in support of terrorism. “The lack of accountability for Treasury’s designations and asset blocking program creates uncertainty about the department’s progress and achievements,” it stated.
Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts, told the ACLU that these laws raised serious due process concerns. “I don’t think you should ever be able to go after anybody without following due process by presenting the evidence and having it heard in court. Otherwise it’s just hearsay or just ‘the organization is guilty because the Treasury said they are a money-laundering organization for terrorism,’” he said. “Where’s the basis? Where’s the evidence?”
A 2007 Department of Justice report found that many people charged in terrorism-related cases end up caught on unrelated charges of immigration violations, minor crimes, or other crimes. In December 2001, the federal government detained the founder and president of a Muslim charity based in Michigan: the Global Relief Foundation. Rabih Haddad was convicted on charges of overstaying a student visa, held in solitary confinement, and eventually deported; press and the public were not allowed to attend his hearings. The Global Relief Foundation was never criminally charged or prosecuted for terrorism-related offenses.
‘We Will Not Stop. We Know What We’re Doing Is Right.”
In January of 2025, LaunchGood and CAIR hosted a seminar for nonprofits worried about efforts to revoke their tax-exempt status—effectively shutting them down. All the federal government would have to do is suspect a group of providing material support to terrorism; there was no requirement to prove it in court. “The mere accusation is enough to send donors running for the hills and banks shutting down accounts,” Robert McCaw, the director of the Government Affairs Department at CAIR, told participants.
Staff with CAIR walked through due diligence and making sure nonprofits took particular care with compliance work.
Chris Abdur-Rahman Blauvelt, the founder of LaunchGood, the largest fundraising platform for Muslims globally, is worried that minor technical mistakes could be exploited by the government in their pursuit of shutting down groups they suspect of supporting terrorism. “It’s not like you’re going to lose a star on Charity Navigator; you’re going to maybe go to jail and not see your kids for 20 years,” he said. “I don’t want to see that happen to somebody.” The first charity to face these accusations, if the bill becomes law, will likely sue, he said. “It’s unconstitutional. It’s going to become a Supreme Court case,” he said.
LaunchGood has had banks cut ties with the organization many times, including three times over the past year. Blauvelt suspects it has something to do with “banking while Muslim”—in other words, unfounded suspicions of supporting terrorism.
In the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act levied large fines on banks considered to be servicing groups supportive of terrorism. To reduce their risk, banks have often cut ties with Muslim charities and NGOs on the basis of sparse evidence. If banks simply suspect a group is supportive of terrorism, they can stop providing them services without communicating a reason. In fact, explaining why is illegal. That’s because the federal government doesn’t want the group to be tipped off to the idea they may be under investigation for terrorism. “If you get de-banked and there’s no reason given, you can assume it’s for a terrorism concern,” Blauvelt said.
LaunchGood has worked with the federal government, including the Department of Treasury in 2020 to release guidance to banks to treat Muslim charities and NGOs more fairly. But he’s skeptical that it has had an effect. “These compliance people and the banks have spent 20 years trained to see Muslims as terrorists, and a memo from the Treasury Department is not going to change that,” he said. It’s sometimes unclear whether a de-banking decision is spurred by the government or a bank.
The bill does include a provision that would provide an appeal process. Organizations would have a ninety-day period to respond to the allegations, but those critical of the measure say it does not provide enough recourse. “It’s the old secret-evidence problem we used to deal with back in the ’90s” said Saylor, with CAIR. “How do you respond to stuff that you can’t see?”
The proposal—and the use of secret evidence—would make charities fighting accusations of support for terrorism even more vulnerable, said Li, at the University of Chicago. These groups would have fewer procedural protections compared to the most common ways in which the IRS can already revoke tax exemptions.
For American nonprofits trying to help Palestinian civilians, the Trump administration’s generalization of pro-Palestinian advocates as being supportive of terrorism feels ominous. “There’s really nothing any of these organizations can do to stay out of the crosshairs of people who define terrorism as any kind of humanitarian aid for Palestinians,” says Steve Sosebee, founder of HEAL Palestine and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). Sosebee is no longer with PCRF but currently runs HEAL Palestine, which operates a field hospital in Gaza for injured children; the organization has brought children to the U.S. for medical treatment.
Groups like his don’t plan on reining in their advocacy. “We will not stop. We know what we’re doing is right. We’re not violating any law, we’re not working on any political agenda. We’re helping innocent children,” he says. The cost of not being able to do their work feels too high: “What’s at stake is that these children don’t get medical care and die.”