Cooper Union helping students afraid of deportation

New York City arts college, The Cooper Union, is attempting to thwart the Trump administration’s efforts to deport foreign students accused of supporting Hamas, a campus-wide email obtained by Fox News Digital revealed.

“The news of the arrest by federal agents of a Columbia University graduate and the raid of two Columbia University dorm rooms in the last week is deeply troubling,” the email began, sent by Associate Dean of Students Grace Kendall and Vice President for Enrollment Troy Kogburn.

“In addition, the State Department announced a new effort to utilize AI to review student visa holders’ social media accounts to identify individuals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups. Please know that we are monitoring these situations closely,” it continued.

The email went on to warn students with “less secure” immigration status about the risks associated with protest activity and social media posts about protest activity. It also announced that the administration would be distributing “Know Your Rights” pamphlets to assist students who fear deportation, and listed members of faculty who could provide assistance. 

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“The Cooper Union does not tolerate nor support endorsement of terrorist groups or their actions. Our focus is 100% on supporting our full community of students, including international students. The purpose of our communication was not to endorse any student actions or positions, but rather to educate our students so they can make informed decisions,” a representative for Cooper Union told Fox News Digital.

The university has emerged as a symbol of the nationwide antisemitic surge on college campuses. In October 2023, weeks after Hamas launched their brutal terrorist attack which saw the most Jews killed on a single day since the Holocaust, Jewish students were forced to take refuge in a library as they were surrounded by an unruly mob of anti-Israel demonstrators who beat on the doors and banged on the windows of the space. 

The Lower East Side school was harshly reprimanded by a Manhattan judge last month after it argued a lawsuit brought by students in the matter should be dismissed on the grounds that they should have left the building or hid in a room above the library. 

“The Court is dismayed by Cooper Union’s suggestion that the Jewish students should have hidden upstairs or left the building, or that locking the library doors was enough to discharge its obligations under Title VI. These events took place in 2023—not 1943—and Title VI places responsibility on colleges and universities to protect their Jewish students from harassment, not on those students to hide themselves away in a proverbial attic or attempt to escape from a place they have a right to be.” 

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The pamphlets that Cooper Union distributed advise students to be “calm and polite” if stopped by law enforcement at a protest, and inform them that they have a right to refuse a search by the police.

The Trump administration has made headlines with high-profile deportations of foreign nationals accused of violating their visas or green cards by supporting terrorist groups. 

Columbia University Apartheid Divest spokesman Mahmoud Khalil is being held in a detention facility in Louisiana as the Trump administration works to expel him from the country. The administration also deported Brown University assistant professor Dr. Rasha Alawieh, who allegedly left the US to travel to Lebanon for ex-Hezbollah chief Hassan Nassrallah’s funeral.