Highlights: GOP presidential candidates are threatening to deport international students who they accuse of sympathizing with anti-Israel terrorists. “If you are here on a student visa as a foreign national, and you’re making common cause with Hamas, I’m canceling your visa and I’m sending you home, no questions asked,” vowed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during Wednesday night’s debate.

Those comments were just the latest salvo in the escalating Republican campaign against immigrants who the right accuses of siding with Hamas, the group that perpetrated the October 7 mass murder in Israel. It’s a trend that is setting off alarm bells for civil liberties advocates, who warn that these proposals risk conflating support for Palestinian rights or criticism of the Israeli government with an endorsement of terrorism. Moreover, they argue, threats of deportation could have a severely chilling effect on free speech and the right to protest.

The Republican demands have already gone far beyond typical campaign-trail bluster. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) urged the Biden administration to “immediately deport any foreign national—including and especially any alien on a student visa—that has expressed support for Hamas and its murderous attacks on Israel.

These calls come as GOP leaders have pressed for even broader immigration crackdowns in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.