Red Scare 2.0
- Himani Harrell
- May 3
- 3 min read
America has seen this before.
In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy unleashed a wave of fear that ruined careers, deported immigrants, and silenced dissent. Now, seventy years later, a new Red Scare is brewing. Only this time, it targets students, immigrants, and activists demanding justice for Palestinians.
Across the country, peaceful protests calling for an end to U.S. complicity in Israel’s assault on Gaza have been met with arrests, suspensions, surveillance, and, increasingly, deportation threats. In a move disturbingly similar to Cold War-era crackdowns, pro-Palestinian voices are being labeled as radical, foreign, and dangerous—often without evidence.
Take Columbia University, where dozens of students were suspended after participating in a nonviolent encampment demanding divestment from weapons manufacturers supplying Israel. Among them was Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian-American student with a green card who was arrested and detained for more than 24 hours without immediate access to legal counsel. His story has become emblematic of a nationwide panic, where student protesters are cast as enemies of the state.
The Trump-aligned GOP has only added fuel to this fire. In a recent campaign speech, former President Donald Trump accused student demonstrators of acting as “foreign agitators” and vowed to “deport pro-Hamas radicals.” The language is clear: to protest Israeli military actions is to betray America.
This rhetoric is not just bluster. It’s already being ordered into policy and practice.
In at least five known instances at Columbia, USC, Yale, UCLA, and Emory, international students have been subjected to visa reviews or ICE detention after participating in pro-Palestinian activism. At Emory, a Sudanese graduate student was detained on minor visa grounds just days after organizing a teach-in. At UCLA, a Jordanian undergraduate reportedly received a notice of removal from ICE for “threatening public order,” a designation historically used to justify ideological deportations during the original Palmer Raids in 1919.
Let’s be clear: this is not about campus safety. This is about stifling dissent.
In a chilling echo of McCarthyism, Republican senators like Tom Cotton have called student protestors “terrorist sympathizers” and called on schools to expel them. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order dissolving pro-Palestinian student groups, citing “national security concerns” without providing any proof.
Meanwhile, conservative think tanks and lobby groups are working overtime to smear students as agents of Hamas or “Islamic extremists”—claims eerily similar to the anti-Soviet propaganda of the 20th century. Civil rights organizations, including the ACLU, have warned that such sweeping generalizations threaten the First Amendment rights of students, particularly Muslims, Arabs, and people of color.
The message is clear: protest U.S. foreign policy, and risk suspension, arrest, or deportation.
The danger is especially acute for international students on F-1 visas. Immigration law, already complex and punitive, has been increasingly weaponized to suppress dissent. A 2020 Trump-era guideline—still largely intact—allows for visa revocation based on “public safety concerns,” a vague and malleable standard that can easily be twisted to target protestors. In the past month, at least a dozen students have reported being warned by school administrators not to join protests if they wish to remain in the country.
This is not democratic. This is authoritarian.
Students like Mohsen Mahdawi are not terrorists. They are young people standing against war, injustice, and the U.S. military-industrial complex. And they are being punished not for violence, but for conscience.
The irony is bitter. While universities preach values of open dialogue and intellectual freedom, they are calling in police to shut down encampments, issuing suspensions without due process, and cooperating with federal agencies to report international students. Columbia faculty themselves have spoken out, saying the administration’s response has “compromised the integrity of the university.”
Make no mistake: we are watching a new Red Scare unfold. But instead of communism, the bogeyman is Palestinian solidarity. Instead of Soviet spies, it’s immigrant students. And instead of loyalty oaths, we now have deportation threats.
Photo Credit:
[Header]- Dave Sanders / NYT
[Embedded 1]- Joey Palumbo/Vermont Public
[Embedded 2]- Ash Lane for The TRiiBE®
Sources:
[4]: https://abc7.com/post/la-city-attorney-declines-file-charges-most-ucla-usc-protesters/16255977/
[5]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/18/us-revokes-nearly-1500-student-visas-who-are-the-targets
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