Stanford students’ lawyers say deporting vocal immigrants is unconstitutional

Stanford University’s student-run newspaper filed a lawsuit against two senior Trump administration officials for using federal statutes to deport immigrant students who were outspoken against Israel. The group sought an injunction against the government to halt all visa revocations nationwide on the basis of free speech.

The university’s student-run newspaper, Stanford Daily and two anonymous noncitizens sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for using the revocation and deportation provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act to order removals for “supposed repulsiveness of anti-American and anti-Israel views.”

The two noncitizens haven’t faced deportation, but fear their speech can lead to visa revocation and orders to leave the country, lawyers for the group said Wednesday. Both are former Stanford students.

“Free speech isn’t a privilege the government hands out,” Attorney Conor Fitzpatrick said. “Under our Constitution it is the inalienable right of every man, woman and child.”

Fitzpatrick, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and Van Der Hout Law Firm represent the group. They added in the lawsuit that the Stanford Daily newspaper reduced its coverage in March 2025 of campus protests of the Israel-Hamas War, fearing Rubio would revoke and later deport immigrants on staff. 

Neither of the secretaries has yet to publicly respond to the lawsuit. The Justice Department, which represents senior federal officials who are sued in official capacities, declined to comment for this story. 

George Fishman, senior legal fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, has supported deporting students who “support Hamas,” according to his opinion pieces. But he told Straight Arrow News the deportations of immigrants should be on the basis of supporting a terrorist organization, rather than Rubio’s discretion that a person’s speech contradicts the U.S.’s foreign policy goals.

The center is a conservative think tank focused on immigration.

Lawsuit argued immigrants have free speech

Central to the lawsuit is the lawyers’ argument that visa-holding immigrants have the right to free speech. They used Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and other students as an example for the Trump administration targeting international students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

“Mr. Khalil had been an active participant at Columbia in demonstrations and advocacy against Israel’s actions following the October 7, 2023, attack,” according to court papers. “Mr. Khalil repeatedly criticized Israel’s military operations in Gaza and what he viewed as Columbia’s financing and facilitation of those activities.”

Khalil was held at a detention center from March until June, when a judge ordered his release.

Rubio “personally determined” that Khalil remaining in the U.S. would adversely affect the nation’s foreign policy interests because he participated in “antisemitic protests” that created hostile environments for Jewish students, FIRE wrote in court documents.

Trump labeled Khalil a “radical foreign pro-Hamas student” in a March 10 Truth Social post.

“We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again,” he wrote. “If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here.” 

Fishman said Khalil faces immigration and other hearings relating to his removal, but the government never used the statute on supporting a foreign terrorist organization to deport him. It instead used statutes on foreign policy, claiming that he withheld information from the federal government when he sought to become a permanent resident.

“If that goes before some other case, we may get a decision on the constitutionality of the foreign policy ground of interadmissibility,” he said.

Constitutionality of immigrant deportations

He added that the Supreme Court hasn’t made a constitutional ruling about whether violating the country’s foreign policy interests is grounds for deportation. That’s only been adjudicated in a 1996 U.S. District Court ruling that said it’s not possible for an immigrant to know if their activities or presence contradict the secretary of state’s foreign interests. 

The Supreme Court did say in the 2018 Trump v. Hawaii case that his 2017 proclamation on disallowing travelers from Muslim majority countries is constitutional. The court wrote that Trump lawfully exercised his discretionary powers to determine that if those people entered the U.S., it would be “detrimental to the national interest.”  

Both notions could be tested in the Stanford Daily’s lawsuit. Lawyers wrote in the lawsuit that they intend on fighting the Trump administration’s move to deport immigrants for participating in protests against Israel. 

“Secretary Rubio and the Trump administration’s war against noncitizens’ freedom of speech is intended to send an unmistakable message: Watch what you say, or you could be next,” they wrote. “Message received.”