Federal judge rules immigration provisions used to deport students over pro-Palestinian speech are unconstitutional
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The Facts
- U.S. District Judge Noël Wise ruled Friday that immigration law provisions used to deport noncitizen students over pro-Palestinian speech are unconstitutional.
- Wise wrote in her 90-page opinion: "in the United States, freedom of speech belongs to the people. It is not the government's to take."
- The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by The Stanford Daily, Stanford University's student newspaper, in the Northern District of California.
- A second plaintiff was an unnamed noncitizen woman who said she withheld her views on Israel and Palestine and deleted a social media account.
- The newspaper said the deportation threats chilled its reporting because international students feared speaking publicly.
- Wise, appointed by President Joe Biden, faulted the State Department and Department of Homeland Security for targeting views the government wanted to suppress.
- Several accounts of the ruling report violations of both the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment's due process guarantee.
- The State Department and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.
- The decision draws heavily on a Boston federal judge's ruling nearly a year earlier that reached similar conclusions.
Context
What government actions did the ruling address?
Wise focused on the administration's practice, beginning in March 2025, of revoking visas and detaining noncitizens who engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus, starting with the arrest of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil ThePrint,Raw Story. Khalil, who held a green card when Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him, is fighting his own deportation case separately Raw Story,ThePrint.
Who brought the case and when?
The Stanford Daily, Stanford's 134-year-old independent student newspaper, sued in August 2025 along with an unnamed noncitizen student, arguing the administration used the Immigration and Nationality Act to revoke visas over constitutionally protected speech San Francisco Chron…,San Jose Mercury Ne…. The paper said reporters holding legal U.S. visas resigned or asked to have their articles removed from its website San Francisco Chron….
What did the judge say about noncitizens' speech rights?
Wise wrote that free speech, including criticism of the government and its leaders, is evidence of a democracy's strength, and that strength is diminished when "citizens and noncitizens alike" must self-censor to avoid government retaliation Hill,Times of Israel,ThePrint. She also stated that noncitizens hold the same free-expression rights as citizens RT en Español.
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
Left and right largely agree on this one.
- Where Left and Right agree
- Both read the ruling as correct: visa status cannot be used as a speech penalty, and State and DHS overstepped the First and Fifth Amendments.
- Where Left and Right differ in emphasis
- Both endorse Wise's ruling; the reasons split: one counts the coerced silence of students who self-censored, the other rejects that much executive discretion over speech.
- Why they won’t converge
- It is a values divide over what the ruling is for — protecting the most exposed people from coercion versus denying any administration that discretion at all — and it survives shared facts because the two rationales part ways the moment the power changes hands.
How left and right read it
The people with the least protection get tested first: a noncitizen woman who deleted a social media account and swallowed her views on Israel and Palestine, and student journalists who pulled back from reporting because speaking publicly could cost them their status. That is coercion, not enforcement. Judge Wise's 90-page ruling found First Amendment and due process violations, so the demand is plain — stop using visa status as a speech penalty.
“The Trump administration unconstitutionally threatened student journalists with deportation for speaking out about the Israel-Palestine conflict and other hot-button issues, a California federal court ruled on Friday in a lawsuit from Stanford University's student newspaper.” — The Independent
Speech isn't a privilege the state licenses out. So when State and DHS reach for visa authority against student views they judged hostile to us, the First and Fifth Amendment violations Wise found in her 90-page opinion follow directly — freedom of speech, as she put it, belongs to the people, and is not the government's to take. Discretion that broad is power no administration should hold.
“Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Noel Wise agreed with the Stanford Daily newspaper in its lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy of seeking to revoke the visas of and deport student protestors it deemed as pro-Hamas.” — Washington Examiner
The receipts — all 61 sources
Wire services (4)
Independent coverage (50)
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