Trump’s student deportation campaign ruled unconstitutional

In the landmark September 30 ruling, a federal judge in Massachusetts said the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining and deporting international students and faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violated the First Amendment.  

In a scathing 161-page ruling, Judge William G Young maintained “unequivocally” that non-citizens lawfully in the US hold the same free speech rights as US citizens under the constitution. 

“The First Amendment does not draw President Trump’s invidious distinction and it is not to be found in our history or jurisprudence,” Young wrote. 

Young ruled the secretaries of the US Departments of State and Homeland Security “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech.” 

He said the secretaries’ intentions were to “strike fear” into other non-citizens holding pro-Palestinian views, to curb lawful speech and to deny them their freedom of speech rights.

“Moreover, the effect of these targeted deportation proceedings continues unconstitutionally to chill freedom of speech to this day,” he ruled.  

Young, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, called the case “perhaps the most important ever to fall within this district court”. 

He ruled in favour of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and other academic groups, who filed a lawsuit in March claiming that the administration’s ideological deportation policy was creating a climate of fear and chilling free expression.  

The plaintiffs, which include AAUP, its chapters at Rutgers, Harvard and New York University, and the Middle East Studies Association, hailed the victory a historic ruling that should have immediate implications for Trump’s policies.  

“If the First Amendment means anything, it’s that the government cannot imprison you because it doesn’t like the speech that you have engaged in, and this decision is really welcome because it reaffirms that basic idea, which is foundational to our democracy,” said Ramya Krishnan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Knight First Amendment Institute. 

The effect of these targeted deportation proceedings continues unconstitutionally to chill freedom of speech to this day

Judge William G Young, US Federal Judge

White House spokesperson Liz Huston vowed the government would appeal what she called “an outrageous ruling that hampers the safety and security of our nation”. 

“Studying in the United States is a privilege that the Trump administration will not allow to foreign nationals who endanger America’s national security or imperil campus safety,” she said in a statement.  

In his ruling, Young said it was never the intent of DHS secretary Kristi Noem and secretary of state Marco Rubio to deport all pro-Palestinian non-citizens.  

“Rather, the intent of the Secretaries was more invidious – to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorising similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.” 

The administration’s policy of arresting, detaining and deporting noncitizen students this spring related to one of Trump’s first executive orders vowing to take “forceful and unprecedented” steps to combat antisemitism on campus.  

Some of the most high-profile cases were those of Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, and Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk. 

Despite the three students being released after court rulings in their favour, the Trump administration is still pushing to overturn court orders that freed the students from immigration custody.  

Judge Young said he would “consider what may be done to remedy these constitutional violations” at a later date.

The plaintiffs have urged the court to make permanent the judge’s March injunction forbidding the government from targetting noncitizens on their political views.

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