Judge deals setback to Trump’s bid to deport pro-Palestinian activists
A U.S. federal judge ruled that the Trump administration's use of immigration laws to deport non-citizen students for pro-Palestinian advocacy is unconstitutional. The court found that these actions violated First and Fifth Amendment rights by suppressing free speech.
Why it matters
This ruling sets a significant legal precedent regarding the limits of executive power in using immigration enforcement to target political dissent on university campuses.
A federal judge on Friday (August 28, 2026) ruled that laws that President Donald Trump’s administration used to cancel visas and initiate deportation proceedings against noncitizen college students based on their pro-Palestinian advocacy and criticism of Israel are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Noel Wise in San Jose, California, in a blistering ruling, chastised the U.S. State Department and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for how they had deployed provisions of federal immigration law to target non-citizens for deportation for expressing views they wanted to suppress.
The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, said that in the United States, free speech, including the freedom to criticise the government and its leaders, was evidence of the strength of the country’s 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 said.
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