Trump’s Student Deportation Policy Ruled Unconstitutional (2)

A US policy targeting international students for removal on ideological grounds is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Boston ruled in a significant loss for the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign critics of Israel.

The arrest, detention, and deportation of foreign students burdened the First Amendment exercise of speech and free association by academic groups who sued over the policy, Judge William G. Young found Tuesday after a multiweek bench trial. The policy was also arbitrary and capricious, said Young, a Reagan appointee, because it wielded federal immigration law in a way never used before.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “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,” Young found.

The detention of students and scholars over their writing or political activism is part of a series of moves by the Trump administration that have roiled international enrollment in US higher ed institutions. Thousands of F-1 international students saw their lawful status terminated and visas revoked without notice over appearances in a federal law enforcement database. And a weeks long pause in visa interviews this summer has disrupted fall enrollment plans for many others.

But the high profile arrests of individuals like Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a student protest leader who became the face of the ideological deportation campaign, had an outsize impact and chilled speech across campuses, the suit argued.

Plaintiffs led by the American Association of University Professors sued the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, and White House in March. The trial revealed that the government relied on tips from pro-Israel groups Canary Mission and Betar U.S. to build reports on student protesters and activists.

“No one’s freedom of speech is unlimited, of course, but these limits are the same for both citizens and non-citizens alike,” Young wrote.

Government officials’ trial testimony, he found, revealed that there was no ideological deportation policy that aimed to remove all noncitizens with Pro-Palestinian views, which could have raised a major outcry over an obvious First Amendment violation. Instead, Noem and Rubio targeted a handful of individuals for speaking out. And they used the Immigration and Nationality Act to have them publicly deported “with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome,” he wrote.

“The Secretaries have succeeded, apparently well beyond their immediate intentions,” Young said.

Not only did the policy violate the First Amendment by chilling speech, it also violated the Administrative Procedure Act by reversing agency practices without any reasoned explanation, his opinion found. Instead, Trump officials simply denied the policy entirely, he wrote.

A hearing on what may be done to remedy those violations will be promptly scheduled, he said.

The Trump administration attempts to deport students for their political views was “an assault on the Constitution and a betrayal of American values,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP.

“This trial exposed their true aim: to intimidate and silence anyone who dares oppose them,” he said in a statement. “If we fail to fight back, Trump’s thought police won’t stop at pro-Palestinian voices—they will come for anyone who speaks out. Defending democracy means standing up now—loudly, visibly, and together.”

Representatives for DHS, the State Department, and the Justice Department weren’t immediately available to respond to requests for comment.

Plaintiffs are represented by American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Zimmer, Citron & Clarke, LLP, Sher Tremonte LLP, and Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute. DHS and the State Department are represented by the DOJ.

The case is Am. Ass’n of Univ. Professors v. Rubio, D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10685, 9/30/25.