Daines seeks to block students arrested during campus protests from federal debt relief

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines is looking to bar students convicted of criminal offenses in connection with the ongoing wave of campus protests from receiving future student loan relief.

While the measure comes in the wake of demonstrations sparked by the Israel-Hamas war, the legislation that Daines is cosponsoring would affect any student convicted of a state or federal offense during a campus protest. The recent protests have enabled “anti-Jew, pro-terror groups to wreak havoc on their campuses and harm Jewish students with violent, anti-semitic threats,” said Daines, a Republican, in a statement.

The legislation, introduced by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is known as the No Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act. Cotton, who advocated for using the military to quell nationwide demonstrations following George Floyd’s death in 2020, has called on President Joe Biden to use the National Guard to put down the campus protests.