On September 30, 2025, U.S. District Judge William G. Young ruled against the administration’s policy targeting noncitizen students and scholars for deportation over pro-Palestinian advocacy. The case was brought by the American Association of University Professors and other academic organizations.
"Non-citizens lawfully present here in the United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us," Judge Young wrote. He found the policy "arbitrary or capricious," and noted that President Trump himself appeared to have approved it.
Beginning in early 2025, the State Department under Secretary Rubio moved to revoke the visas of student and academic activists, invoking a rarely-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that lets the Secretary of State declare a non-citizen deportable on "foreign policy" grounds. The Department of Homeland Security, led by Secretary Kristi Noem, carried out the arrests. According to evidence in the case, investigators reviewed the names of roughly 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters, producing about 200 "violation reports." By the spring of 2025, more than a thousand students had had their visas revoked or their status terminated, many of them later restored by courts.
- Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and lawful permanent resident, was taken from his New York apartment building by ICE agents on March 8, 2025 without an arrest warrant. He was held for 104 days in Louisiana — including during the birth of his first child — before a federal court ordered his release. He was never charged with a crime.
- Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University with a valid F-1 visa, was surrounded and arrested on a Somerville, Massachusetts street on March 25, 2025 and held for roughly six weeks in Louisiana — apparently over an op-ed she had co-written criticizing her university's response to the war in Gaza.
- Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow, and Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia student arrested at what he believed was his citizenship interview, were likewise detained and later released by court order.
- Yunseo Chung, a Columbia undergraduate and longtime permanent resident, was sought by ICE and protected by a court; Momodou Taal, a Cornell doctoral student, left the country under threat of arrest; and Leqaa Kordia spent more than a year in ICE detention in Texas without ever being charged.
The court scheduled further proceedings on remedies. The ruling addressed the challenged policy; individual immigration and detention cases also continued in other courts.
This article is based on reporting by The Washington Post (October 2, 2025) and on the text of Judge Young's September 30, 2025 ruling.
