Just a quarter of respondents said they favored deporting students for “expressing pro-Palestine views.”
By trying to deport student activists he describes as antisemitic “terrorist sympathizers,” you might think, President Donald Trump is cannily choosing unpopular targets who are unlikely to attract much public support. But according to recent polling by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), most Americans are not fans of that speech-chilling initiative.
According to the latest iteration of FIRE’s quarterly National Speech Index survey, which was conducted from April 4 through April 11, just 26 percent of Americans “support” or “strongly support” a policy of “deporting foreigners legally in the United States on a student visa for expressing pro-Palestine views,” while 52 percent—twice as many— “oppose” or “strongly oppose” that policy. The rest were undecided.
When FIRE asked about “deporting foreigners legally in the United States with a green card for expressing pro-Palestine views,” the results were similar. While 23 percent of respondents thought that was a good idea, 53 percent disagreed, and 23 percent took no position.
And this:
“Deporting someone simply for disagreeing with the government’s foreign policy preferences strikes at the very freedoms the First Amendment was designed to protect,” says Sean Stevens, FIRE’s chief research adviser. “Americans are right to reject this kind of viewpoint-based punishment.”
