After Trump won the election last year, the STAR wrote in its editorial piece, “History has made one thing clear. We have to fight for our rights. Get organized. Join a club. Organize a protest. Hang some flyers. The communities and identities that you represent may not be a target, but they’ll be next. If your activism is limited to social media, it’s time to go grassroots.”

Since then, ICE arrests have been reported in Sonoma County, and student athletes’ dreams ruined overnight by the removal of NCAA athletics. Students in majors such as Women’s and Gender Studies, on top of dealing with rhetorical political attacks, now must deal with the real consequences of choosing a major cut from their own university.

Now, our presidential administration is spying on student visa applicants and holders.

Where do you stand Sonoma State? Fascism is here. Let’s review.

According to American journalist Ken Klippenstein who recently obtained a leaked directive from the U.S. State Department, “The Trump administration is requiring that foreign students studying in, or seeking to study in the United States, pass an ideological test in order to obtain a visa,”

Just to be clear this is not a test on paper – but a screening process of applicants’ threats to state interests, and that includes student visas.

In Section 4 of the directive, titled Every Visa Decision is a National Security Decision, the document says visa applications will be screened to determine whether they pose a threat to U.S. national security.

“The Visa Office directed consular officers to maintain extra vigilance and to comprehensively review and screen every visa applicant for potential security and non-security related ineligibilities including to assess whether the applicant poses a threat to U.S. national security,” the document states.

Section 8 of the document also outlines how “Fraud Prevention Units”  will take screenshots of visa applicants’ social media for “derogatory” information.

“If the social media review uncovers potentially derogatory information indicating that the applicant may not be eligible for a visa, Fraud Prevention Units are required to take screenshots of social media findings to the extent it is relevant to a visa ineligibility, to preserve the record against the applicant’s later alteration of the information.”

Two of Trump’s executive orders are referenced in the start of the directive, Executive Order 14161 Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats, and Executive Order 14188 Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.

The leaked directive applies to three student visas; F, M and J.

Section 9 of the document outlines the department’s initiative for finding possible connections of terrorist activity.

In the directive, connections to terrorism is roughly described as “advocating for, sympathizing with, or persuading others to endorse or espouse terrorist activities or support.”

While the document is vague on specifically what terrorism is, section 5 references Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s quote on “pro-Hamas protests”:

“When you apply to enter the United States and you get a visa, you are a guest… if you tell us when you apply for a visa, ‘I’m coming to the U.S. to participate in pro-Hamas events,’ that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States… if you had told us you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa.”

This information comes just two days after Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30 year old Turkish national and doctoral student studying at Tuft College in Massachusetts, was seized while walking on a sidewalk and detained by the Department of Homeland Security after her visa was revoked. According to a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security, she was detained due to “engaging in activities that supported Hamas.” The specific activity listed was an op-ed piece Ozturk co-authored in The Tufts Daily that criticized the universities lack of acknowledgment of the genocide in Palestine. 

Ozturk, who was in the United States on an official student visa, is just one recent example of foreign and exchange students being detained by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security due to their involvements in Free Palestine protest and activism. Ozturk and other students were publicly doxxed by the website Canary Mission. 

According to the website, “Canary Mission documents people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews. We investigate hatred across the North American political spectrum, including the far-right, far-left and anti-Israel activists.”

On March 27, Sonoma State’s Vice President of the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination, Julie Vivas sent out an email saying the CSU had updated its non-discrimination policy as of March 3 in order for it to be in compliance with recent court rulings, specifically referring to the “Dear Colleague” letter. 

The letter was sent out from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights that required all college campuses to revise their Title IX regulations to remove any programs and content related to DEI, at the risk of losing federal funding. In the email Vivas states, “The CSU has developed an interim Nondiscrimination Policy and Procedures designed to meet the changing federal requirements while also preserving its commitment to protecting its students and employees.”

The changes to the policy reflect similar decisions being made across other college campuses in the country, including at  Columbia University where Columbia graduate and pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Kahlil was detained by ICE on March 8 and had his green card revoked.

Surveillance isn’t just starting at the border. It’s extending into the classroom.

To Sonoma State: History is watching.

Students are being kidnapped in front of their houses for their stances on American foreign policy. ‘Enemies and Aliens’ of the State are being deported to El Salvador, and the U.S. is spying on visa students’ social media accounts for speech they deem is against the interests of the United States.

If this doesn’t affect you already, what is your red line?

To the tenured faculty and professors, is it when a student gets ‘disappeared’ from your class?

To the students just trying to get a grade and go home, is it when your group member suddenly stops responding in the google doc?

To the administrators up above, is it only when the bad news finally arrives, and statements must be made to the press?

What is your red line?