The problem is that 30 years ago what was considered "material support" and what will be considered now may be considered two different things. Unfortunately in the highly litigious world politics has become, I am unsure if the old standards apply. How the statute is written to include an individual as personnel, can it be twisted to show that people protesting have some form of financial support from aligned organizations outside of the US are not shown to have a known tie and are still actively then working for the goals of the organizations? It's a major stretch in my view, but how we have seen other statutes "reimagined" lately, I am unwilling to write it off as impossible or even very unlikely.
That is my greatest concern with all of this, from a student standpoint. All it takes is this become enough of a hot issue to upset a subset in the DOJ and a large swath of kids' lives will in effect be ruined. While I may disagree with their viewpoint, I don't support people targeting a person's right to protest organically. The problem we run into is what is organic in nature, and what is driven by someone else. As someone who is heavily invested in the international student community, I do question the validity of the organic nature of some policies and approaches and more importantly, I am concerned that the students themselves do not understand that they are more at risk than they perceive.