Dive Brief:
- The Trump administration on Wednesday appealed an August court decision that ruled its efforts to deport international students because of their protected speech were unconstitutional.
- Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revoked visas for international students en masse and moved to deport them.
- The agency argued the Immigration and Nationality Act gave it broad authority to deport international students. But a federal judge ruled that the DHS' actions violated the students' First Amendment and due process rights in cases where the Trump administration targeted them for expressing views it opposed.
Dive Insight:
The DHS did not immediately respond to questions Thursday. It appealed the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The lawsuit over the Trump administration's actions dates back to August 2025, when Stanford University’s independent student newspaper alleged the federal government sought to deport students that it deemed to hold “anti-American or anti-Israel” views.
The administration's actions created a “pall of fear” that is “incompatible with American liberty," the newspaper alleged in its lawsuit. The complaint cited decisions by Stanford’s international students to turn down stories, ask that their previous articles be taken down or quit the publication entirely out of fear that their legal status would be threatened.
This summer, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise sided with the plaintiffs and said that the Trump administration has targeted people over speech it disfavored on other topics as well, such as criticisms of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk after he was fatally shot at Utah Valley University.
“Tomorrow, or perhaps even today, targets may include anyone in the United States who exercises their freedom of speech to simply express opinions the government does not like,” she wrote in her decision. “This downward spiral is antithetical to our Constitution that recognizes our right to speak freely.”
A recent research paper found a strong correlation between pro-Palestinian campus protests in spring 2024 and the federal government terminating the legal status of international students at those colleges.
The findings offer "compelling evidence that immigration authorities were targeting political expression on U.S. campuses for punitive enforcement," according to the paper.
