Opening statements are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Monday in a trial to determine whether the Trump administration used immigration authorities to punish noncitizens for engaging in pro-Palestine activism.
District Judge William G. Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee, will oversee the nine-day trial at the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse in Boston. The case, brought by the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, alleges that the Trump administration created a so-called ideological-deportation policy that “entails the arrest, detention, and deportation of noncitizen students and faculty for constitutionally protected speech and association.”
“By design, the agencies’ policy has created a climate of repression and fear on university campuses. Out of fear that they might be arrested and deported for lawful expression and association, some noncitizen students and faculty have stopped attending public protests or resigned from campus groups that engage in political advocacy,” attorneys from the Knight First Amendment Institute, which represents the plaintiffs, wrote in court filings.
“Others have declined opportunities to publish commentary and scholarship, stopped contributing to classroom discussions, or deleted past work from online databases and websites. Many now hesitate to address political issues on social media, or even in private texts,” they wrote.
Lawyers point to Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestine activist who was arrested after the State Department revoked his visa and green card. “The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,” the government wrote in deportation proceedings. A judge ordered Khalil released after ruling that the government cannot deport him because of his activism.
Student news outlets across the country have seen an influx of requests to take down published reports and opinions since Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Rümeysa Öztürk, a Ph.D. student at Tufts University who was in the U.S. legally, after she co-authored a pro-Palestine op-ed in the The Tufts Daily. She was released on bail in May.
A coalition of student media advocates including the Student Press Law Center, Associated Collegiate Press and College Media Association issued a security alert in April. “Non-citizen student speakers, including those who have published legally protected speech in student media, have faced severe consequences, including visa revocation, detention, deportation or bans on reentry,” the alert stated.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed a friend of the court brief in support of the plaintiffs, joined by 17 other states and the District of Columbia. The brief was among the legal documents Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco held up at an April 16 campus update meeting, though it does not specifically refer to UMass Boston or any individual UMass campus.
“The Ideological Deportation Policy is antithetical to the principle of free expression that is supposed to define American higher education,” the brief states. “When students and faculty fear deportation for expressing certain viewpoints, the entire academic experience suffers. Classroom discussions become less robust, research questions go unexplored, and the pursuit of truth—the very purpose of higher education—is compromised.”
The judge wrote in an order that he will not allow witnesses to testify anonymously. “This Court is a safe place. The plaintiffs and their witnesses may fully participate in the trial process without fear of retribution knowing they are protected by this Court’s order…. Indeed, were there to be any violation traceable to any of these defendants, it would prove the plaintiff’s case,” Young wrote.
“One of America’s finest jurists, Circuit Judge Richard S. Arnold of Arkansas, had this to say to fellow judges, ‘There has to be a safe place. We have to be it,’” Young wrote. “For 235 years of continuous sittings, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts has been that ‘safe space.’ We shall not falter.”
