Trump Allies Linked to Website Doxxing Pro-Palestine Academics, Pushing Deportation

NEW YORK — In an extraordinary revelation that has sent shockwaves through academia and civil rights circles, a senior official from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) testified under oath that the Trump administration systematically relied on information from an anonymous, controversial website to surveil and attempt to deport pro-Palestinian academics and student activists.

At the heart of this web lies Canary Mission—a shadowy, pro-Israel database known for doxxing college students and professors critical of Israel. The site, whose operators and funding sources remain opaque, publishes dossiers that claim to expose “hatred against the U.S.A., Israel, and Jews” on North American campuses. Until now, U.S. agencies denied any formal association. That veil was shredded in federal court this week.

Peter Hatch, a high-ranking ICE official, revealed that a “tiger team” of intelligence analysts within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was assigned to comb through over 5,000 names listed on Canary Mission as part of a larger operation targeting pro-Palestine voices. The court testimony came during a lawsuit brought by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), which are challenging what they call the Trump administration’s “ideological deportation policy.”

The bombshell lawsuit was triggered by the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student whose detainment in March marked the first known instance of Trump-era efforts to remove non-citizens based solely on political belief. Since then, the government has canceled student visas en masse and ordered the arrests of multiple foreign scholars, including Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk—abducted by plainclothes agents days after co-authoring an op-ed critical of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

“This is not immigration enforcement. This is political cleansing,” said Amy Greer, Khalil’s attorney, who is set to testify later this week.

Under Judge William G. Young’s questioning, Hatch confirmed that DHS did not only receive leads from Canary Mission—it actively used the site to build files. “It was the most comprehensive list we had access to,” he said. “We corroborated the information, but the starting point was Canary.”

That statement directly contradicts previous ICE claims, which insisted their operations did not rely on such online platforms.

Critics argue that this sets a dangerous precedent, where anonymous websites with political agendas can dictate government enforcement actions.

“This is McCarthyism reborn through a digital filter,” said Professor Leila Ayyash, a political science expert at NYU. “Except this time, the list is crowdsourced, anonymous, and weaponized through federal agencies.”

Legal experts and advocacy groups are calling for a congressional investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a statement demanding immediate declassification of all DHS actions related to Canary Mission and similar sources.

So far, the White House and DHS have remained silent. Canary Mission, when contacted by The Independent, claimed it had “no contact with either this administration or the previous one.”

Nonetheless, the court heard otherwise. “We received names from multiple sites,” Hatch said, “but Canary was the most inclusive. We needed a specialized team just to process the volume.”

For now, the lawsuit continues, with the fate of Khalil and dozens of other students hanging in the balance. Meanwhile, civil rights advocates warn that this case could shape the boundaries of academic freedom, immigration enforcement, and political dissent for years to come.

“If your visa depends on your political silence, then freedom of speech is just a privilege for citizens,” said Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch. “And that should terrify all of us.”