{"id":1987,"date":"2025-07-11T16:35:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T16:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1987\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T16:35:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T16:35:03","slug":"canary-mission-how-us-uses-a-hate-group-to-target-palestine-advocates-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1987\/","title":{"rendered":"Canary Mission: How US uses a \u2018hate group\u2019 to target Palestine advocates | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC \u2013 The United States government has acknowledged its use of Canary Mission \u2014 a shadowy pro-Israel website \u2014 to identify pro-Palestine students<\/a> for deportation, sparking anger and concern by rights advocates.<\/p>\n

Activists have long suspected that the administration of US President Donald Trump is gathering information from the Canary Mission website to target students and professors.<\/p>\n

But on Wednesday, that suspicion was confirmed when a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official testified in a court case challenging Trump\u2019s efforts to deport<\/a> pro-Palestinian student protesters.<\/p>\n

Peter Hatch, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the department had assembled a specialised group \u2014 dubbed a \u201ctiger team\u201d \u2014 to work on removing pro-Palestine college students from the country.<\/p>\n

He indicated to the court that some tips about students were communicated verbally, before explaining that the team had also combed through the nearly 5,000 profiles Canary Mission had compiled of Israel\u2019s critics.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean someone said, \u2018Here is a list that the Canary Mission has put together?’\u201d Judge William Young asked Hatch, according to court transcripts.<\/p>\n

The official answered with a simple \u201cyes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), said the government\u2019s reliance on an online blacklist that posts personal information to harm and intimidate activists is \u201cabsurd and fascist\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanary Mission is a doxxing website that specifically targets people for language that they deem to be pro-Palestinian and therefore, they\u2019ve decided, is anti-Semitic. Its sole purpose is to target and harass people,\u201d Gowayed told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you use a hate group \u2026 to identify people for whether or not they have the right to be present in the country?\u201d<\/p>\n

The crackdown<\/p>\n

As demonstrations opposing the Israeli atrocities in Gaza swept college campuses<\/a> last year, Israel\u2019s advocates portrayed the protest movement as anti-Semitic and a threat to the safety of Jewish students.<\/p>\n

While activists pushed back against the accusations, saying that the protests were aimed at combatting human rights abuses against Palestinians, conservative leaders called to crush the demonstrations and penalise the participants.<\/p>\n

Shortly after returning to the White House in January, Trump himself signed a series of executive orders<\/a> that laid the groundwork for targeting non-citizens who took part in the student protests for deportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously,\u201d one of the orders read<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It called on government officials to create systems to \u201cmonitor for and report activities by alien students and staff\u201d.<\/p>\n

In March, Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil<\/a> \u2014 a permanent resident married to a US citizen \u2014 became the first prominent victim of Trump\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a seldom-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to order Khalil\u2019s removal, on the basis that the Columbia student\u2019s presence has \u201cadverse\u201d effects on American foreign policy.<\/p>\n

After Khalil, many other students were detained by immigration authorities. Some left the country voluntarily to avoid imprisonment. Others, like Khalil, continue to fight their deportation.<\/p>\n

Free speech advocates decried the campaign as a blatant violation of constitutionally protected freedoms.<\/p>\n

But the Trump administration asserted that the issue is an immigration matter that falls under its mandate.<\/p>\n

Before last year\u2019s presidential elections, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think tank, released a policy document titled Project Esther<\/a> designed to dismantle the Palestine solidarity movement in the US.<\/p>\n

Project Esther called for identifying students and professors critical of Israel who are in violation of their visas, and it cited Canary Mission extensively.<\/p>\n

A \u2018witch hunt\u2019 against students<\/p>\n

For years, Palestinian rights advocates have condemned Canary Mission for publishing identifying information about activists \u2014 their names, photos and employment histories \u2014 while keeping its own staff anonymous.<\/p>\n

In its ongoing deportation campaign against student activists, the Trump administration has said that it is targeting students who engaged in violent conduct, promoted anti-Semitism and had ties to \u201cterrorist\u201d groups.<\/p>\n

But none of the prominent students detained by ICE have been charged with a crime, and some only engaged in mild criticism of Israel.<\/p>\n

For example, the only accusation against Rumeysa Ozturk<\/a>, a Turkish scholar at Tufts University, is that she co-authored an op-ed asking her school to honour a student resolution calling for divestment from Israeli companies.<\/p>\n

That column, published in the university\u2019s student newspaper, landed Ozturk on the Canary Mission\u2019s blacklist, which appears to have led to the Trump administration\u2019s push to deport her.<\/p>\n

Andrew Ross, a New York University professor of social and cultural analysis, said the US administration\u2019s use of Canary Mission\u2019s data shows that the government\u2019s push is \u201csloppy\u201d and biased.<\/p>\n

He added that while Canary Mission appears well funded, its content is curated to paint its targets in a certain light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re looking for material and content that they can manipulate and spin and present as if the person being profiled is anti-Semitic basically,\u201d said Ross, who has his own Canary Mission profile for criticising Israel.<\/p>\n

The professor accused the Trump administration of \u201cfundamental dishonesty\u201d, describing the deportation campaign as a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d.<\/p>\n

How does Canary Mission work?<\/p>\n

While Canary Mission does not appear to fabricate data, it portrays criticism of Israel as bigoted and dangerous.<\/p>\n

Some profiles denounce individuals for actions as innocuous as sharing materials from\u00a0Amnesty International condemning Israeli abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The profiles seem to be optimised for internet searches. So, even if the accusations lack merit, targeted individuals often report that their Canary Mission profiles sit at the top of online searches for their names.<\/p>\n

Advocates say the tactic can have a detrimental impact on careers, mental health and safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has caused people to lose jobs. It has caused people all kinds of adverse effects,\u201d Gowayed said.<\/p>\n

For his part, Ross said he has received hate mail because of Canary Mission. He worries the website can be especially harmful for marginalised groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose, as we are seeing, who don\u2019t have full citizenship status are particularly vulnerable at this point in time. But it could be anyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The website was founded in 2015, and it has been expanding since. Nevertheless, barring a few media leaks over the years, the operators and funders of Canary Mission remain anonymous.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Haaretz<\/a> reported that Israeli authorities have relied on the website to detain people and bar them from entering the country.<\/p>\n

That same year, the outlet The Forward found<\/a> that Canary Mission is linked to an Israel-based non-profit called Megamot Shalom. Since then, media reports have revealed the names of a few wealthy American donors<\/a> who have made contributions to the website through a network of Jewish charities.<\/p>\n

\u2018Silencing dissent\u2019<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Palestine Legal, an advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of racism for relying on the website.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder Trump, ICE has now publicly admitted they are abducting pro-Palestinian student activists based on an anonymously-run blacklist site,\u201d Palestine Legal said in a social media post.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the mass deportation machine, and these horrific blacklists, clearly run on racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

J Street, a group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace, also decried the government\u2019s use of the website.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanary Mission is feeding the Trump Administration\u2019s agenda, weaponizing antisemitism to surveil and attempt to deport student activists,\u201d it said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t about protecting Jews \u2014 it\u2019s about silencing dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The State Department did not respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s query on the government\u2019s use of Canary Mission. Instead, a department spokesperson referred to a statement by Secretary of State Rubio<\/a> from May.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is, if you\u2019re coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, and we find you, we will revoke it,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

DHS did not respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

But the Trump administration may also be using more extreme sources than Canary Mission to deport students.<\/p>\n

At Wednesday\u2019s court hearing, Hatch was asked about other sources the government is using. He replied that there was one other website he could not recall.<\/p>\n

The court asked Hatch if it might be Betar<\/a>, a far-right, Islamophobic group with links to the violent Kahanist movement in Israel.<\/p>\n

According to transcripts, Hatch replied, \u201cThat sounds right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gowayed, the City University of New York professor, called the government\u2019s approach an \u201cegregious overstep and distortion of any kind of notion of justice or legality\u201d.<\/p>\n

But she added: \u201cWhat is more troubling to me is they don\u2019t know which hate group they used.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington, DC \u2013 The United States government has acknowledged its use of Canary Mission \u2014 a shadowy pro-Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2302,12,526,2420,174,2562,2563,3,2564,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-1987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-education","tag-government","tag-internet","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-news","tag-protests","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}