Stanford University’s independent student newspaper sued Secretary of State
Two of the Stanford Daily’s writers, who are international students, say that they have refrained from reporting on campus protests, vigils and other events related to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza out of fears that their visas would be revoked. The students, who are not identified, say that creates a chilling effect on their free speech rights.
“Writers present on student visas are declining assignments related to the conflict in the Middle East, worried that even reporting on the conflict will endanger their lawful immigration status,” according to the lawsuit, filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in federal court in San Jose, California.
The Department of Homeland Security called the lawsuit baseless and poltical, and insisted that it doesn’t “arrest people based on protected speech.”
“DHS takes its role in removing threats to the public and our communities seriously, and the idea that enforcing federal law in that regard constitutes some kind of prior restraint on speech is laughable,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here.”
The lawsuit challenges a section of immigration law that the government has said allows it to deport noncitizens if the Secretary of State determines them to pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy. That’s the same law that the government is using as it attempts to deport several students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses, including Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration are trying to turn the inalienable human right of free speech into a privilege contingent upon the whims of a federal bureaucrat, triggering deportation proceedings against noncitizens residing lawfully in this country for their protected political speech regarding American and Israeli foreign policy,” the complaint argues.
The case is Stanford Daily v. Rubio, Case No. 25-cv-06618, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
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Anthony Aarons
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