Pro-Israel Site Canary Mission Used To ID Student Protesters

On Wednesday (July 9), Peter Hatch, the assistant director of Homeland Security Investigations within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), testified in Boston that his office used the Canary Mission website to help target international students for investigation and deportation. 

The anonymously-run Canary Mission website “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American campuses and beyond.” Hatch also testified that his group of analysts, called a “Tiger Team,” also utilized information collected from another pro-Israel group known as Betar on these students without substantiating how these sites were able to get their information.

According to reporting by Vox, funding for Canary Mission has mostly remained anonymous, with donors contributing through a pass-through group called the Central Fund of Israel (CFI). The group’s database has also reportedly been used by Israeli intelligence to deny visitors entry at its borders. Those identified on the website also include those individuals and groups who support the efforts of institutions to boycott, divest from, or sanction companies based in Israel or who do business with Israel.

When asked by District Court Judge William G. Young to verify that his team had to conduct investigations on over 5,000 people identified by Canary Mission, Hatch confirmed it was true. According to reporting of the trial by the New York Times, he then testified that 100 to 200 reports on noncitizen protesters were forwarded to the State Department for further action. “The Canary Mission wasn’t the only group of students. It was most of it, yes,” Hatch stated, noting that some of the names were duplicated in multiple sources. “But Canary Mission was the most inclusive.”

The revelation comes as the federal government is being sued by the AAUP and the Middle East Studies Association over its policies of targeting those who’ve criticized the Israeli government and their actions in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the Hamas terror organization. The government has denied that those policies exist. The academic associations assert that these policies were behind the detainment of figures such as Columbia University graduate student activist Mahmoud Kahlil and others, such as Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was detained by ICE agents in Boston and spent six weeks in federal custody before being released.

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Photo: Getty