A judge in Boston will rule on whether student deportations violate free-speech rights : NPR

Ari Shapiro, host:

Has the Trump administration violates the rights of freedom of expression by trying to deport students born abroad who protested to support the Palestinians? A federal judge will soon rule on this constitutional issue after a two -week trial which ended today in Boston. Adrian Florido de NPR followed the case. Hey, Adrian.

Adrian Florido, Byline: Hi, Ari.

Shapiro: Tell us what this affair is and which brought it.

Florido: Well, it was brought by the American Association of University Professors and other university groups, and they argue that the government has this concerted policy aimed at targeting foreign students for expulsion to protest in favor of Palestinian rights or to have criticized Israel. And they asked this federal judge William Young to declare this unconstitutional policy and to order the government to stop trying to deport students for their demonstrations or their political opinions.

Now Ari, there are fundamental questions in this case. The first is: do non-citizens have the same constitutional right to freedom of expression as American citizens? And another is: the government violates this right by trying to expel these student demonstrators?

Shapiro: So tell us about the evidence and testimonies that have been presented. What happened in the trial?

Florido: Well, we have heard several demonstrators of the non -citizen university who declared that since the government has moved to expel Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk and other students whose arrests have become high -level incidents, that these teachers are now self -censors because they fear being detained or expelled. They stopped publishing critical articles of Israeli policy. They stopped protesting. They stopped speaking in public. It was a testimony which was to show that these arrests cooled freedom of expression, which the complainants support was always the objective of the government here – to silence the pro -Palestinian voices.

We have also learned testimonies how the government has identified demonstrators for potential expulsion. Ice officials said in court that they had obtained most of their names – thousands of them – looking at Canary Mission. It is a secretly managed pro-Israeli website that identifies militant students and accuses them of anti-Semitism or supporting Hamas’ terrorism against Israel. And based in part on this list, the ICE intelligence agents then wrote files on approximately 200 non-citizens so that the State Department can consider revoking their visas or green cards.

Shapiro: Did the test highlighted the way in which the State Department decided which of these students or green cards to continue?

Florido: It did. We have heard testimonies from John Armstrong. He oversees visas in the State Department and he took action on some of these files. He revoked the Visa of the student graduated with tuffs Rumeysa Ozturk on an editorial that she wrote in the school newspaper, and he recommended that Secretary of State Marco Rubio cancels the green card of Mahmoud Khalil. And he declared before the court that he considers anti-Israeli views as anti-Semites. And he said by criticizing the actions of Israel in Gaza or singing, you know, something like, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free – that these things could be enough to revoke a visa.

He said that civil servants considered – in his words – all of the circumstances in the case of each student, but he also stressed that part of the government’s objective here in the expulsion of students, according to him, is anti -Semitic or pro -Hamas is to prevent terrorism. He said that if it is wrong, it could mean another September 11.

Shapiro: Well, today, closing arguments. What have lawyers on both sides had to say?

Florido: Well, Ramya Krishnan, lawyer for the complainants, summed up their main point in this way. She said, quote: “If the non-citizens can be expelled according to their political discourse, then they have no first amendment rights because they must always fear that their political discourse will deploy those in power.” And she said the judge should block government policy to expel demonstrators for their pro-Palestinian opinions.

For their part, the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice said that there was no policy here. They said that the ice and the state department were doing the same job they had always done to examine and expel people, with a new emphasis on the realization of President Trump’s decrees to prevent terrorist attacks and fight anti -Semitism. From now on, government lawyers have also argued that non-citizens do not have the same rights of freedom of expression as American citizens, especially when national security issues are concerned. The judge therefore ended today by saying that he has a lot to consider and does not expect to govern before September.

Shapiro: Adrian Florido de NPR, thank you.

Florido: Thank you, Ari.

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