Donald Trump says he will deport pro-Palestinian protesters if elected

Former United States President Donald Trump has promised his campaign donors that he would deport “pro-Palestinian” student protesters to get them to “behave” if he returned to the White House for a second term.

Trump made the declaration while addressing a roundtable event in New York earlier this month as anti-Israel demonstrations swept the United States, The Washington Post reported.

“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump allegedly said on May 14.

Trump also quipped that the people attending the event consisted of “98 per cent of my Jewish friends”, sources were quoted as saying by The Independent in its report.

In public, Trump has voiced varying opinions on Israel’s war against Gaza. However, at the recent meeting in New York, he reportedly expressed support for Israel’s actions against “terrorism”.

A wave of pro-Palestinian protests erupted across several US universities in April, with students demanding colleges to divest from companies that support Israel and the war in Gaza. Over 2,000 protesters were arrested.

During the New York event, a donor voiced concern that many students and professors participating in the protests could one day hold positions of power in the country.

Trump reportedly characterised the protests as a “radical revolution” that he vowed to crush, as reported by The Washington Post. Commending the New York Police Department’s recent actions in dispersing protesters at Columbia University, he stated that nationwide demonstrations needed to be “stopped now”.

“Well, if you get me elected, and you should really be doing this, if you get me re-elected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” he said, according to the donors cited by The Washington Post in its report.