A US federal judge has ruled that immigration laws used by the Trump administration to revoke visas and pursue deportation proceedings against noncitizen college students over pro-Palestinian advocacy and criticism of Israel violate the Constitution.

In a sharply worded decision, US District Judge Noel Wise of San Jose, California, criticized the State Department and Department of Homeland Security for using federal immigration provisions to pursue deportation against noncitizens because of speech and political views the government sought to discourage.

Wise, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, emphasized that freedom of expression, including the right to criticize government officials and government policies, is an important indicator of a democratic society.

“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.

The State Department and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Wise’s decision examined actions taken by the Trump administration beginning in March 2025, when officials began revoking visas and detaining noncitizens involved in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activism on college campuses. The crackdown began with the arrest of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who is separately challenging efforts to deport him.

The arrests subsequently became central to a lawsuit filed in August 2025 by The Stanford Daily, Stanford University’s student newspaper. The publication argued that some of its student-visa-holding writers had stopped covering pro-Palestinian demonstrations and Middle East-related issues because they feared consequences under the administration’s immigration policies.

Attorneys for the newspaper contended that two sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act used by the administration to revoke student visas and pursue deportations violated the First and Fifth Amendments when applied to constitutionally protected expression.

The provisions gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio authority to determine that a noncitizen was deportable if, in his personal judgment, that individual’s conduct “compromises a compelling foreign policy interest.” The provisions also gave him broad authority to revoke visas.

Wise sided with the newspaper, concluding that when a person’s speech serves as the basis for revoking a visa and pursuing deportation, “the government is singling out that speech for disfavored treatment based on its viewpoint or content.”

Conor Fitzpatrick, whose Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression represented The Stanford Daily, welcomed the decision in a statement, saying the ruling “proves that free speech isn’t a privilege, but the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child.”

The ruling echoes a decision issued last year by US District Judge William Young in Boston. Young likewise concluded that the administration had violated the Constitution by implementing a policy aimed at revoking visas, arresting, detaining and deporting foreign students and faculty members involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Wise also warned that the government’s approach could eventually extend beyond pro-Palestinian activism to other forms of expression that officials find objectionable. She cautioned that “targets may include anyone in the United States who exercises their freedom of speech to simply express opinions the government does not like.”

“This downward spiral is antithetical to our Constitution that recognizes our right to speak freely,” she wrote. “Here you can simultaneously hate the content of a person’s speech and love the country that cherishes the freedom to allow it.”If you want, I can also make this more forceful and newspaper-like, more neutral and Reuters-style, or more concise for a news website while keeping the quotations unchanged.