US universities to students - shut up and sit down or we'll set the Trump FBI on you

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies executed search warrants the morning of April 23 at homes in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Canton.

The Michigan Attorney General's Office said the raids are part of a vandalism investigation but a lawyer who spoke to several people whose homes were raided insisted they were targeted for their pro-Palestinian activism.

"Everyone who was raided has taken part in protest and has some relationship to the University of Michigan," said Liz Jacob, an attorney with the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, which is representing several protesters who say they've been effectively banned from campus. "We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted."

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's Office obtained the warrants. Office spokesman Danny Wimmer denied the homes were targeted because of protests.

"Our search warrants were not related to protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan nor the Diag encampment," Wimmer said in a statement to the Free Press. "Today's search warrants are in furtherance of our investigation into multijurisdictional acts of vandalism."

Detroit FBI office spokesman Jordan Hall confirmed his agency was present in Ypsilanti, but declined to elaborate on the reason, saying only it was for "law enforcement activity."

It's unclear why the FBI would be involved in a vandalism complaint.

"It really sounds like multijurisdictional vandalism is a euphemism for the Attorney General cooperating with the Trump administration to target pro-Palestine protesters," Jacob said.