A federal judge in Boston ruled Thursday that academics targeted for deportation over their pro-Palestinian activism can seek legal protection if the Trump administration retaliates against them for participating in a lawsuit challenging the government’s enforcement policy. U.S. District Judge William Young, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said noncitizen members of two academic associations can challenge any changes to their immigration status made in reprisal for their free-speech activities.
The ruling creates a legal barrier against what the judge characterized as an ‘unconstitutional conspiracy’ by the Trump administration to suppress pro-Palestinian speech on American campuses. Young expressed alarm at what he called the government’s fundamental misunderstanding of First Amendment protections.
Judge William Young, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has overseen a case that has pitted him directly against the Trump administration on a fundamental constitutional question: whether targeting noncitizens for deportation because of their pro-Palestinian activism violates the First Amendment.
On Thursday, Young issued a ruling that attempts to protect the plaintiffs—members of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association—from what he described as the administration’s attempt to “pick off” political dissenters through immigration enforcement.
A noncitizen challenging a change in immigration status would need to prove membership in one of the two groups between March 25, 2025, and September 30, 2025, and show their status had not expired and they had not committed any crime after that date. Young wrote that upon such proof, “it shall be presumed that the alteration in immigration status is in retribution for the exercise during the course of the present case of their First Amendment rights.”
The Associated Press is not aware of any group members whose immigration status has been changed because they are part of the lawsuit.
A Prior Constitutional Ruling
The ruling marks the latest development in an unusual legal confrontation. Young has presided over the case with visible frustration at the government’s conduct. In a trial last year, he ruled that the administration had violated the Constitution by targeting noncitizens for deportation solely for supporting Palestinians and criticizing Israel.
During a hearing earlier this month, Young asked the court: “How could this happen? How could our government’s highest officials seek to so infringe on the rights of people lawfully here in the United States.”
He said that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and their agents had engaged in an “unconstitutional conspiracy” to limit free speech. He said the administration had created a chilling effect “by their attempts to ‘pick off certain people.’”
“The big problem in this case is that the cabinet secretaries, ostensibly and president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment,” Young said. “There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of what the First Amendment is by this government.”
Trial Testimony Shows Scale of Enforcement
Trial testimony revealed the scope of the enforcement action. Government witnesses acknowledged that the campaign had targeted more than 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters. Witnesses for the plaintiffs testified that the campaign had stoked fear among academics and prompted some to stop their activism out of concern for their immigration status.
Two cases became focal points in the litigation.
Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student and Palestinian activist, remains entangled in the immigration system despite court intervention. In mid-January, a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision that had released Khalil from an immigration jail. The appeals court did not address whether the administration’s effort to deport him over his campus activism and criticism of Israel was unconstitutional, ruling instead that his case must move fully through immigration courts before he could challenge the government’s decision in federal court.
The reversal marked what the administration characterized as a major win in its sweeping campaign to detain and deport noncitizens who joined protests against Israel. It remained unclear whether the government would seek to detain Khalil again, a legal permanent resident, while his legal challenges continue.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student, was released in May from six weeks of detention after being arrested on a suburban Boston street. She said she was illegally detained following an op-ed piece she had co-written criticizing her school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Judge Questions Government’s Understanding
At the latest hearing, Young seemed searching to comprehend the conduct he was reviewing. “The record in this case convinces me that these high officials, and I include the president of the United States, have a fearful view of freedom,” he said.
Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which argued for relief in court on behalf of the academics, said the ruling underscored the harm the enforcement campaign had caused to campus communities.
“The administration’s lawless efforts to deport pro-Palestinian advocates has spread terror in our campus communities,” Krishnan said. “Students and scholars shouldn’t have to live in fear that ICE agents could seize them from their homes merely for engaging in political expression. Today’s judgment makes emphatically clear that the administration’s campaign of intimidation must end.”
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.