Stanford University’s student-run newspaper sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over its determination to use half of a federal immigration law to target and deport pro-Palestinian activists, arguing the federal government’s effort has impermissibly chilled students’ First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit, filed at a federal court docket in California, represents the newest authorized problem to two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act which have been key to the State and Homeland Security Departments’ so-called ideological deportation coverage. In a number of different instances introduced across the nation, judges have additionally been requested to weigh the constitutionality of the INA provisions and the administration’s coverage round them.
The California case was introduced by the group that publishes The Stanford Daily and two noncitizen former school students who concern their pro-Palestinian views or advocacy may put them in danger of being deported. Attorneys for the newspaper stated within the lawsuit that worldwide students on workers are turning down assignments associated to the battle in Gaza or “seeking removal of their previous articles about it.”
“Since the Trump administration began targeting lawfully present noncitizens for deportation based on protected speech in March 2025, lawfully present noncitizen students working at and contributing to Stanford Daily have self-censored expression for fear of visa revocation, arrest, detention, and deportation,” attorneys from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which introduced the brand new case, wrote in court docket papers.
One of the INA provisions at subject offers Secretary of State Marco Rubio the authority to resolve {that a} noncitizen is detachable if he “personally determines” that the person’s views “would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” The different offers the secretary the facility to “at any time, in his discretion” revoke a visa.
The Stanford Daily and the 2 unnamed former students are asking a federal decide to bar the administration from utilizing the pair of provisions to deport them and any noncitizen members of the newspaper’s workers based mostly on their “protected speech.”
“The First Amendment cements America’s promise that the government may not subject a speaker to disfavored treatment because those in power do not like his or her message. And when a federal statute collides with First Amendment rights, the Constitution prevails,” the attorneys wrote.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a weekslong bench trial in a separate case in Boston throughout which members of the Trump administration testified beneath oath in regards to the authorities’s focusing on of noncitizen pro-Palestinian students and students.
The trial, which concluded on July 21, highlighted how DHS started taking orders from the State Department because it went after sure professors and students to change their immigration standing and work to have them deported. US District Judge William Young, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, is now deciding whether or not the federal government’s “ideological deportation policy” had the impact of unlawfully chilling the speech of sure professors.
The attorneys in that case say the administration’s actions towards pro-Palestinian activists on school campuses have focused probably lots of of noncitizens.