US Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration's Attempt to Deport Pro-Palestinian Students over Free Speech

A United States federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration violated the constitutional rights of international students when it sought to punish them for criticising Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

In California on Friday, District Judge Noel Wise heaped criticism on the US Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after the agencies attempted to deport noncitizens over protected speech. “Stated plainly, in the United States, freedom of speech belongs to the people,” Wise said in her 90-page decision. “It is not the government’s to take.”

Wise, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, added that, in the US, speaking out about the government and its leaders was a testament to the health of the country’s democracy. “That strength is diminished when members of our society — citizens and noncitizens alike — must self-censor and ‘behave’ or suffer the government’s retaliation,” she said.

The ruling centred on how the second Trump administration revoked visas and detained international students studying in the US after they engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy. The detentions began with Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil in March 2025. Columbia had been an epicentre for the student protest movement, and Khalil, a graduate student and permanent US resident, had emerged as a key negotiator for the student groups.

Mahmoud Khalil, who is fighting his deportation in a separate case, praised the ruling on Saturday in a post on social media. “No one should fear speaking up for Palestine,” Khalil wrote on X.

Arrests like Khalil’s formed the basis for the lawsuit against US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, one of the defendants in the case. In August 2025, Stanford University’s independent student newspaper, the Stanford Daily, filed a complaint claiming that some of its noncitizen writers had chosen not to cover pro-Palestinian protests due to the administration’s actions. Two anonymous plaintiffs also joined the suit, identifying as foreign nationals with no criminal record, stating they too felt the need to self-censor for fear of losing their student visas.

The Trump administration, however, has pointed to the Immigration and Nationality Act as justification for its deportation efforts, which asserts that the secretary of state can exclude foreign nationals if their presence could cause potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States. However, critics argued the standard does not supersede the First Amendment of the Constitution.

In her ruling, Wise chastised Marco Rubio for a “standardless” enforcement of his visa revocation policy, noting a clear pattern of revoking visas when noncitizens are critical of the government. Conor Fitzpatrick, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Free Expression (FIRE), hailed the ruling as a win for First Amendment rights.

The Trump administration has faced other setbacks, including a September 2025 ruling by a federal judge in Massachusetts determining that officials violated the First Amendment when attempting to detain and deport noncitizen students and academics. Al Jazeera has reached out to the State Department and DHS for comment.