Newly released memos reveal State Dept. concerns about basis for student deportations

Newly released memos reveal State Dept. concerns about basis for student deportations

State Department officials who were tasked with deporting foreign students accused of antisemitism and threatening American national security warned that the efforts may present free speech concerns, according to government documents that a federal judge released last week.  The several hundred pages of previously sealed federal documents are connected to the ongoing deportation cases against Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Yunse…

DHS Targeted Students for Protected Speech

Newly unsealed court documents show that the federal government arrested and attempted to deport international scholars based solely on their pro-Palestinian activism. Federal government officials targeted and arrested international students for First Amendment–protected activity last year, despite internal concerns about the legality of such efforts, newly unsealed court documents show. Dossiers and summaries compiled by government officials us…

Trump blocked from deporting international students in free speech triumph

A federal judge in Massachusetts has warned the administration that it must not single out international students or academics for their pro-Palestinian views by changing their immigration status in retaliation for speaking out. The ruling, which came after a nine-day court hearing earlier this month, found that secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem and secretary of state Marco Rubio had put in effect executive orders and other means design…

Trial Evidence Reveals Concerted Effort to Deport Noncitizens for their Political Speech

Over the course of a two-week trial in July 2025 in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, the government, for the first time, disclosed extraordinary internal documents making clear that the nation’s immigration officials had targeted students and faculty for arrest and deportation on the basis of their constitutionally protected pro-Palestinian advocacy. These records, made public by the court on January 22, 2025, include the …