A US federal judge rejects the deportation of foreigners for political speeches

Federal Judge Noël Wise has ruled that the intention of the Administration of US President Donald Trump to deport foreigners for political speeches is not legal because it is contrary to the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.

The newspaper ‘Stanford Daily’ sued the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, for the use of the Immigration and Nationality Act to deport foreign students on the grounds that it discouraged them from writing opinion articles that criticized the Administration. “In the United States, freedom of expression belongs to the people. It is not an option of the Government,” argued Wise, who estimates the publication’s demand in this way.

The lawsuit also includes an unidentified woman residing in the United States who arrived on a student visa who “avoided publishing her actual opinions on Palestine and Israel and has deleted a social media account to avoid retaliation for her previous statements,” according to court documents.

“You can hate the content of a person’s speech and love the country that harbors the freedom that allows it. Zealous protection of the constitutional right to freedom of expression is a demonstration of our country’s powerful absence of fear,” the judge added.

This ruling follows the launch last year of a government campaign to revoke visas and initiate deportations of pro-Palestinian foreign students. Thus, Columbia University activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk and Georgetown University academic Badar Khan Suri were deported.