SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge on Friday struck down key portions of the Trump administration's push to deport noncitizens for pro-Palestinian speech, ruling that the practice violates the First and Fifth Amendments.
U.S. District Judge Noël Wise's decision delivers a victory to The Stanford Daily, the Stanford University student newspaper that sued after international students said they had stopped writing about Israel and Gaza for fear of losing their visas. The ruling extends to the West Coast a similar decision issued nearly a year ago by a federal judge in Boston.
Wise wrote that freedoms of speech and the press are "foundational to America's enduring democracy." The government's deportation criteria, she found, were both retaliatory and unconstitutionally vague. She cited retaliation in March 2025 by U.S. immigration authorities against people who backed Palestinians and criticized Israel's conduct in Gaza, and separate retaliation against people who were critical of Charlie Kirk after the Turning Point USA co-founder was assassinated last September.
What the judge said
"Freedom of speech is illusory if we are only 'free' to express complementary views about the government and its leaders," Wise wrote. "Tomorrow, or perhaps even today, targets may include anyone in the United States who exercises their freedom of speech to simply express opinions the government does not like," she added.
Wise said noncitizens hold the same First Amendment rights as citizens but were left to guess how those rights applied. "This is an incomprehensible standard," she wrote, adding that the government's discretion "must nevertheless still ensure that ordinary people can understand what the law permits and prohibits."
Effect on the newsroom
At The Stanford Daily, lawfully present noncitizen reporters have quit, withheld articles, refused assignments, asked that published pieces be taken down and requested anonymity to avoid immigration consequences, Wise noted. She said the government had offered "a chilling message regarding protected speech" and that noncitizen students had "heard the warning and heeded." "And, as the idiom goes, the silence is deafening," the judge wrote.
George Porteous, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, wrote on X: "The reporters in our newsroom shouldn't have to fear that writing a story will result in their deportation. Today's victory means they won't have to."
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression brought the suit. "In America, free speech doesn't just belong to the people who say things the government agrees with," Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the group, said in a release.
Government silent
The Justice Department did not respond Saturday to a message seeking comment on the decision. As of press time, the administration had not publicly defended the deportation criteria — its foreign-policy rationale, its answer to the vagueness challenge, or any planned appeal — a view absent from Saturday's coverage.
With the Boston ruling still standing, the Justice Department now faces two federal decisions rejecting its deportation criteria for noncitizen critics of Israel.