The Trump administration violated the U.S. Constitution when it targeted non-citizens for deportation solely for supporting Palestinians and criticizing Israel, a federal judge said Tuesday in a scathing ruling directly and sharply criticizing President Donald Trump and his policies as serious threats to free speech.
U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston agreed with several university associations that the policy they described as ideological deportation violates the First Amendment as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how federal agencies develop and issue regulations. Young also found the policy was "arbitrary or capricious because it reverses prior policy without reasoned explanation."
"This case — perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court — squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The court answers this constitutional question unequivocally, 'yes, they do,'" wrote Young, a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan.
Plaintiffs in the case welcomed the ruling.
"The Trump administration's attempt to deport students for their political views is an assault on the Constitution and a betrayal of American values," said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors union. "This trial exposed their true aim: to intimidate and silence anyone who dares oppose them."
The ruling came after a trial during which lawyers for the associations presented witnesses who testified that the Trump administration had launched a co-ordinated effort to target students and scholars who had criticized Israel or showed sympathy for Palestinians.
"Not since the McCarthy era have immigrants been the target of such intense repression for lawful political speech," Ramya Krishnan, a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, told the court. "The policy creates a cloud of fear over university communities and it is at war with the First Amendment."
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'Disheartening' ruling: Homeland SecurityTricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, released a statement that didn't directly address the ruling but said Young was "smearing and demonizing federal law enforcement," while referring to a deadly shooting this month at an ICE facility in Texas.
"Our ICE law enforcement should be thanked for risking their lives every day to arrest murderers, pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and terrorists instead of vilified by sanctuary politicians," she said. "It's disheartening that even after the terrorist attack and recent arrests of rioters with guns outside of ICE facilities, this judge decides to stoke the embers of hatred."
Protesters and members of the Jewish Voice for Peace gather in support of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil outside in New York City on April 14. Khalil, detained at the time by immigration authorities, has since been released. (Yuki Iwamura/The Associated Press)Despite McLaughlin's statement, data from ICE itself has revealed that a significant majority of those detained by immigration authorities have no known criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.
Lawyers for the Trump administration put up witnesses who testified there was no ideological deportation policy as the plaintiffs contended.
John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, testified that visa revocations were based on long-standing immigration law. Armstrong acknowledged he played a role in the visa revocation of several high-profile activists, including Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, and was shown memos endorsing their removal.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Married to a U.S. citizen, Khalil continues to be vocal.
Ozturk, a Tufts University student, was released in May from six weeks in detention after being arrested on a suburban Boston street. She said she was illegally detained following an op-ed co-authored by Ozturk and three others, which criticized her school's response to the war in Gaza.
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Unprecedented targeting, ICE official testifiesArmstrong also insisted that visa revocations were not based on protected speech and rejected accusations that there was a policy of targeting someone for their ideology.
Peter Hatch, of ICE's Homeland Security investigations unit, testified that the campaign targeted more than 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters, and federal investigators wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law. Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.
Young accused Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their agents of misusing their powers to target non-citizens who were pro-Palestinian in order to silence them and, in doing so, "intentionally denying such individuals (including the plaintiffs here) the freedom of speech that is their right."
Young also criticized Trump in his 161-page ruling, suggesting he supported the policy, even though he may not have authorized its operation.
"The facts prove that the president himself approves truly scandalous and unconstitutional suppression of free speech" on the part of two of his senior cabinet secretaries, he wrote.
Young will hold a separate hearing on the relief requested by the plaintiffs, which is likely to be a request that the Trump administration stop engaging in ideological deportations.