Judge warns Trump administration from changing plaintiffs immigration status in First Amendment case

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BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the academics, who are party to a lawsuit alleging U.S. policy singles out noncitizens for detention or deportation over their pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, can seek relief from the court if their immigration status is changed as retribution for taking part in the case.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge William Young comes in the wake of trial last year, in which he ruled the Trump administration violated the Constitution when it targeted non-U.S. citizens for deportation solely for supporting Palestinians and criticizing Israel. Young repeatedly chastised the administration for violating the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs and, on Thursday, issued what he described as “remedial sanction to protect certain of the Plaintiffs’ noncitizen members from any retribution for the free exercise of their constitutional rights.”

During the hearing in the case earlier this month, Young maintained that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their agents had engaged in an “unconstitutional conspiracy” to limit the free speech of the plaintiffs, creating a chilling effect on their rights by their attempts to “pick off certain people.”

“The big problem in this case is that the cabinet secretaries, ostensibly and president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment,” said Young, an appointee of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan. “There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of what the First Amendment is by this government.”

In his ruling, Young said that a noncitizen challenging his or her immigration status change would have to prove that they were a member of the American Association of University Professors and Middle East Studies Association, the two groups that sued, between March 25, 2025, and Sept. 30, 2025. They would also have to show their immigration status had not expired and had not committed any crime after Sept. 30, 2025. The Associated Press is not aware of any members of these groups whose status has changed because they are part of the lawsuit.

“Upon such proof, it shall be presumed that the alteration in immigration status is in retribution for the exercise during the course of the present case of their First Amendment rights,” Young wrote.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment

During last year's trial, witnesses for the government acknowledged that the campaign targeted more than 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters. Other witnesses for the plaintiffs testified to how the campaign stoked fear among academics and prompted some to stop their activism.

Among the cases that have fueled the lawsuit was that of former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. Earlier this month, a federal appeals panel reversed a lower court decision that released Khalil from an immigration jail, bringing the government one step closer to detaining and ultimately deporting the Palestinian activist.

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t decide the key issue in Khalil’s case: whether the Trump administration’s effort to throw Khalil out of the U.S. over his campus activism and criticism of Israel was unconstitutional.

But in its 2-1 decision, the panel ruled a federal judge in New Jersey didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the matter at this time. Federal law requires the case to fully move through the immigration courts first, before Khalil can challenge the decision, they wrote.

The decision marked a major win for the Trump administration’s sweeping campaign to detain and deport noncitizens who joined protests against Israel. But it was not immediately clear whether the government would seek to detain Khalil, a legal permanent resident, again while his legal challenges continue.

Another was the Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was released in May from six weeks of detention after being arrested on a suburban Boston street. She said she was illegally detained following an op-ed piece she co-wrote last year criticizing her school’s response to Israel's war in Gaza.

During the latest hearing in the case, Young repeatedly seemed baffled that the country's top leaders would attempt to implement such a policy.

“How could this happen? How could our government’s highest officials seek to so infringe on the rights of people lawfully here in the United States,” he told the court. “The record in this case convinces me that these high officials, and I include the president of the United States, have a fearful view of freedom.”

Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which argued for relief in court, said the “administration’s lawless efforts to deport pro-Palestinian advocates has spread terror in our campus communities.”

“Students and scholars shouldn’t have to live in fear that ICE agents could seize them from their homes merely for engaging in political expression,” she said. “Today’s judgment makes emphatically clear that the administration’s campaign of intimidation must end.”