Tracking Trump's executive orders: Weaponizing antisemitism

Executive Order 14188: Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism
Date Signed: January 29, 2025

Key Provisions:

• The Trump administration announced that within 60 dates of Executive Order 14188, the head of each federal agency will submit a report to the President about all the actions they can do to curb antisemitism and create an inventory of all antisemitic complaints related to post-October 7 campus antisemitism
• This report will include all Title VI complaints, including in K-12 education, related to antisemitism
• The Attorney General is encouraged to use appropriate civil rights enforcement authorities, such as 18 U.S.C. 241, to combat antisemitism, which was originally created to address violence from the Ku Klux Klan and was previously used to indict President Trump
• The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security will work with one another to monitor and report on non-citizen students and staff and when applicable, to deport them from the country
• The Executive Order’s accompanying “fact sheet” states: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before”

Interfaith Alliance Counterpoints:

• Interfaith Alliance insists that to take on antisemitism, we must do so together. That’s why in January we launched our new white paper, “Together against Hate,” describing how interfaith communities can join together to fight collectively against distinct but overlapping forms of hatred and discrimination.
• As our partners at the National Council of Jewish Women, T’ruah, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, and Bend the Arc have made clear, this Executive Order will not substantively create protections for Jews and is instead a pretext for targeting other marginalized groups, particularly from Muslim and immigrant communities.  
• Interfaith Alliance is deeply concerned with Executive Order 14188’s implications for free speech and its vilification of noncitizens who protested in support of Palestinian human rights. We reject the idea that hate-filled rhetoric and deportations are the right ways to combat antisemitism.