Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...A federal judge this week ruled that the Trump administration unconstitutionally tried to suppress the free speech of noncitizen students who spoke out against Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza by threatening deportation.
The decision was a win for The Stanford Daily student newspaper and an unnamed student who filed a lawsuit last August, accusing Trump administration officials of weaponizing the Immigration and Nationality Act to revoke visas over constitutionally protected speech. The plaintiffs cited the government’s targeting of noncitizens who criticized Israel or U.S. foreign policy, arguing the crackdown severely chilled the newspaper’s ability to report.
U.S. District Judge Noël Wise wrote in the 90-page ruling that the government “offered a chilling message regarding protected speech” and violated the First and Fifth amendments when it tried to use an immigration law to retaliate against noncitizen students whose views conflicted with those of administration officials.
“In the United States, free speech, including the freedom to criticize the government and its leaders, is not a sign of our democracy’s fragility,” Wise wrote. “It is evidence of its strength. That strength is diminished when members of our society — citizens and noncitizens alike — must self-censor and ‘behave’ or suffer the government’s retaliation.”
The legal challenge followed a wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country, including at Stanford. Campus activism there featured a 120-day sit-in, encampments calling for divestment and the June 2024 arrest of 13 activists after they barricaded themselves inside the university president’s office. Five of those students went to trial on felony charges that ended in a mistrial. The case is now being reviewed by the California Attorney General’s Office for a potential retrial following the local district attorney’s recusal.
Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which is representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the “ruling proves that free speech isn’t a privilege, but the inalienable right of every man, woman and child.”
The ruling, which will prevent noncitizen student-journalists at the Stanford Daily and other parties at the university from having their visas revoked or being deported because of their protected speech, is the first of its kind in the country, according to FIRE. The foundation said the ruling could set a precedent that influences the outcome of other high-profile cases involving noncitizen students, like that of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student who was arrested and detained for three months over his role in pro-Palestinian protests.
Wise, who was appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, also criticized “standardless” and “seriously discriminatory enforcement” of visa revocation.
In court filings, The Stanford Daily contended that several staff members were forced to self-censor or quit out of fear of government retaliation, and that international students became reluctant to be quoted or asked to be removed from previous articles. The plaintiffs cited the high-profile cases of Khalil and Tufts Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk — the latter of whom co-authored an op-ed in her campus newspaper — who were both targeted for immigration enforcement after speaking out against Israel’s strikes in Gaza.
The government argued that because the plaintiffs had not been arrested, deported or stripped of their visas, any threat of future enforcement was purely speculative.
Wise rejected that argument.
“The record does reveal one clear pattern in the enforcement actions the government has taken to revoke noncitizens’ visas since March of 2025: the Secretary revokes visas when noncitizens are critical of the government or the causes or people it favors,” Wise wrote.
The judge noted that the government had revoked visas based on an op-ed written in a student newspaper criticizing the university’s position on Israel as well as social media posts celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Editors at the Stanford Daily have said in the past that reporters had turned down assignments, requested the removal of articles or quit because they feared deportation.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice could not immediately be reached for comment.
Reporter Ryan Macasero contributed to this report.