U.S. District Judge William Young blocks Trump's deportation policy targeting pro-Palestine student activists, ruling it violated free speech rights. Image: AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File/AP via Syracuse.
(The Post News) – A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump broke the U.S. Constitution by attacking pro-Palestinian campus demonstrators. The court ruled that the Trump administration abused immigration power to stifle criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza.
U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, concurred with academic groups that took the administration to court. He said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio targeted students and professors due to political speech, a clear First Amendment infringement.
“They instilled fear into similarly situated non-citizen pro-Palestinian individuals, suppressing lawful speech and depriving them of their constitutional rights,” Young wrote.
Students and Professors Testify to Chilling Effect
The two-week hearing uncovered how the policy terrified professors and students. After being arrested by federal agents for pro-Palestinian activism, Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts scholar Rumeysa Öztürk both spent months in immigration detention.
Northwestern professor Megan Hyska, who is a Canadian citizen, testified that she was fearful of losing her green card if she criticized the administration. “It became clear that public dissent risked detention and deportation,” she told the court.
The records showed that federal officials employed the clandestine pro-Israel blacklist Canary Mission to target foreign students. A top Homeland Security Investigations official verified that most of the names submitted for deportation came from the website.
Judge Young criticized not only Rubio and Noem but also Trump. He criticized Trump as a “bully who is prone to boastful bragging” who maintains unconstitutional suppression of free speech. He condemned the deployment of masked immigration agents, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan: “ICE goes masked for one reason: to intimidate Americans into silence.”
Young warned that Trump tries to bully colleges, law offices, and news organizations into compliance. He cited Reagan’s warning that “freedom is a fragile thing” and blamed Trump for twisting it into a cynical view that Americans are so fractured they will not defend their rights.
White House and Advocates Respond
The White House condemned the ruling as “outrageous” and vowed to appeal it quickly. “Learning in America is a privilege we will not extend to those who represent a danger to campus safety,” replied spokeswoman Liz Huston.
Rights organizations welcomed the decision. Maya Berry of the Arab American Institute called it “a landmark victory” for free speech. “This is about rejecting the catastrophic precedent of labeling dissent as hate speech in an effort to silence justice movements,” she stated.
The ruling might affect pending deportation proceedings against organizers like Khalil and Öztürk, but the outcome remains uncertain. However, it is the strongest legal rebuke yet to efforts made by Trump to politicize immigration law against political speech.
Judge Young concluded with a question: “I fear President Trump believes the American people are too divided to defend our most precious constitutional values. Is he correct?”
About the Author
