California judge rules Trump cannot deport students for criticizing Israel

The State Department and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Citing the importance of the First Amendment, a federal judge in California says the U.S. government is unconstitutionally silencing critics of Israel's war in Gaza and others as part of the Trump administration's quest to deport noncitizens who it says disrupted college campuses while expressing their views.

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Wise cited retaliation in March 2025 by U.S. immigration authorities against people who engaged in speech supporting the Palestinians and against Israel's actions — which a growing number of experts, including those commissioned by a U.N. body, have said amount to genocide. The judge also cited retaliation against people who were critical of Charlie Kirk after the Turning Point USA co-founder was assassinated last September.

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Wise cited retaliation in March 2025 by U.S. immigration authorities against people who engaged in speech supporting the Palestinians and against Israel's actions — which a growing number of experts, including those commissioned by a U.N. body, have said amount to genocide. The judge also cited retaliation against people who were critical of Charlie Kirk after the Turning Point USA co-founder was assassinated last September.

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The ruling came in a case brought by The Stanford Daily, Stanford University's student newspaper, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which argued the administration used the provisions to target noncitizen students for deportation based on protected speech, including writing op-eds and attending protests.

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Wise’s ruling echoed a similar decision issued by U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston last year. Young, who was appointed by a Republican president, ruled in a case brought by academic groups that the Trump administration had violated the Constitution when it targeted foreign students for deportation solely for their pro-Palestinian activism and that the policy had chilled political speech.

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She also agreed that the Trump administration’s actions had a chilling effect.

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“The government has offered a chilling message regarding protected speech—speak out against Israel or in support of Palestinians and we will revoke your visa and deport you. Behave,” she said. “Noncitizen students heard the warning and heeded. And, as the idiom goes, the silence is deafening.”

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In a legal complaint filed last August, the student paper — along with two anonymous plaintiffs not affiliated with the Daily — accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem of violating students’ constitutional rights with their immigration enforcement operations.

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The ruling memo cites several instances in which Trump administration officials labeled pro-Palestinian protesters “sympathizers” of Hamas, the militant group that orchestrated the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel. For the past year and a half, it continues, Trump and his allies repeatedly threatened to deport and revoke visas of college campus demonstration participants.

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The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), first enacted in 1952, grants the secretary of state the power to authorize a person’s deportation if he determined they jeopardized “a compelling foreign policy interest.”

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Wise, who was appointed by former President Biden to the Northern District of California, sided with the student paper. He found the Trump administration violated students’ First and Fifth Amendments when it relied on two provisions of the INA to use their speech as a basis for deportation.

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The ruling memo cites several instances in which Trump administration officials labeled pro-Palestinian protesters “sympathizers” of Hamas, the militant group that orchestrated the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel. For the past year and a half, it continues, Trump and his allies repeatedly threatened to deport and revoke visas of college campus demonstration participants.

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Columbia had been an epicentre for the student protest movement, and Khalil, a graduate student and permanent US resident, had emerged as a key negotiator for the student groups.

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Khalil, who is fighting his deportation in a separate case, praised the ruling on Saturday in a post on social media.

“No one should fear speaking up for Palestine,” Khalil wrote on X.

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Columbia had been an epicentre for the student protest movement, and Khalil, a graduate student and permanent US resident, had emerged as a key negotiator for the student groups.

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Two anonymous plaintiffs also joined the suit, identifying as foreign nationals with no criminal record. They said they too felt the need to self-censor, for fear of losing their student visas.

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But critics have argued that the standard is largely untested in court and does not supersede the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects free speech.

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The Trump administration has faced other setbacks in its student deportation campaign as well.

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The Stanford Daily, a student newspaper, and two of its international students sued the Trump administration in August 2025, claiming the government had weaponized two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act to revoke visas, arrest and deport noncitizens for expressing opinions it did not agree with.

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The government directed retaliatory punishment against people who were critical of Israel’s actions in Palestine, people who were critical of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk after his death, and even people who weighed in on an Iran peace deal this year, Wise noted.

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None of the cases the government cited support their position that visa holders have second-class First Amendment protections compared to other lawfully present noncitizens, Wise added in a footnote.

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The Trump administration relied on provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act to initiate deportation proceedings for protected speech if the secretary of state personally deems that the speech compromises a compelling foreign policy interest, and to revoke the visa of any noncitizen at any time for any reason. But the plaintiffs say those provisions amounted to unchecked authority.

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