PNN – The Politico website wrote in a report: While Donald Trump is trying to deny his connection to “Project 2025,” many of the recommendations presented in this project, especially in the area of suppressing Palestinian supporters, have now found their way into American policies.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, Politico added: The Trump administration’s severe crackdown on universities and supporters of Palestine in the United States is comparable to the “2025 Project” proposed by the Heritage think tank under the name “Project Aster.”
The conservative American think tank issued a series of guidelines last fall before the US election under the pretext of confronting anti-American and anti-Semitic elements in the pro-Palestinian movement. Now, the White House appears to be using these directives to defund universities and crack down on immigrants.
The people involved in the Heritage Foundation’s “Aster” project are close Trump allies, some of whom are now in government positions. Of the 47 recommendations it makes, the Trump administration and its allies in Congress have attempted to cover up at least 27 of them in their rhetoric or policy, according to a Politico analysis of the 33-page document.
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These include calling for the expulsion of pro-Palestinian activists, revoking the visas of international students and faculty at universities that support Palestinian rights, and cutting funding for aid organizations, and suppressing broader movements by accusing them of supporting Hamas.
The Aster Project, whose stated goals are echoed in the rhetoric of most Republicans and some Democrats, claims that the pro-Palestinian movement is “part of a global network of support for Hamas.” The project’s designers accuse student activists protesting the Israeli regime’s bombing of Gaza of supporting or sympathizing with Hamas.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the US government had canceled about 300 visas for Palestinian students and supporters.
The US also revoked the green cards of two other students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University: Mahmoud Khalil, born in Syria, who is being held in a detention center in Louisiana, and Yeonsu Chung, born in South Korea, whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been trying to arrest.
The Trump administration has signaled that more crackdowns are on the way; the U.S. Department of Education has warned 60 higher education institutions that it will launch possible investigations if they do not do more to protect Jewish students.