The issue dominated an Iowa campaign event on Friday, where several GOP presidential candidates competed to see who could promise the harshest possible crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters at U.S. colleges and universities. “You see students demonstrating in our country in favor of Hamas,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said. “Remember, some of them are foreigners,” DeSantis said that, were he elected president, he would cancel the visas of pro-Palestine students.
“If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or the ideology behind Hamas, you’re disqualified. And if you’re a communist, Marxist, or fascist, you are disqualified,” he said. Most legal experts agree that these proposals would fail to pass constitutional muster.