U.S. judge rules Trump administration visa crackdown on pro-Palestinian student speech unconstitutional
By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - A federal judge in California on Friday handed the Trump administration a significant legal setback, ruling that immigration statutes used to revoke visas and push for deportation of noncitizen college students over pro-Palestinian advocacy and criticism of Israel are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Noel Wise in San Jose issued a searing opinion that took aim at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, saying the agencies had used federal immigration law to target noncitizens for deportation for expressing views they wanted to suppress. Wise, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote that free speech — including the right to criticize the government and its leaders — reflects the strength of American 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 wrote.
The State Department and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Wise’s ruling centered on a policy that began in March 2025, when the administration started revoking visas and detaining noncitizens engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus. The first prominent case involved Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who is fighting deportation in a separate proceeding.
The challenge was brought by The Stanford Daily, Stanford University’s student newspaper. In its August 2025 lawsuit, the paper said some of its writers on student visas had avoided covering pro-Palestinian student protests and topics tied to the Middle East conflict because they feared government retaliation.
The newspaper argued that two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act violated the First and Fifth Amendments. One allowed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to render a noncitizen deportable if he personally determined the person’s actions “compromises a compelling foreign policy interest.” The other gave Rubio discretionary authority to revoke a visa.
Wise sided with the newspaper, writing that when a noncitizen’s speech is the reason for a visa revocation and deportation determination, “the government is singling out that speech for disfavored treatment based on its viewpoint or content.”
Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression who represented The Stanford Daily, said the decision “proves that free speech isn’t a privilege, but the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child.”
The ruling follows a similar decision last year by U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston, who also found the administration had acted unconstitutionally by revoking visas, arresting, detaining and deporting foreign students and faculty engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy. Together, the rulings have created obstacles for one of the administration’s signature immigration enforcement efforts.
Wise expressed concern that the government had moved on to target people for expressing other views it disfavored. Eventually, she said, the “targets may include anyone in the United States who exercises their freedom of speech to simply express opinions the government does not like.”
“This downward spiral is antithetical to our Constitution that recognizes our right to speak freely,” Wise wrote. “Here you can simultaneously hate the content of a person’s speech and love the country that cherishes the freedom to allow it.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Stephen Coates)