A federal judge issued a sweeping ruling Thursday entitling noncitizen students who have sued the Trump administration to a court hearing if their immigration status is changed.
The Trump administration has faced several hurdles from district courts in pursuing parts of its deportation agenda, including revoking the visas of pro-Palestinian students who have engaged in anti-Israel unrest on college campuses. The lawsuit before U.S. District Judge William Young was brought by a pair of groups, the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, both of which alleged the administration partook in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by revoking the student visas of foreign nationals who were involved in anti-Israel unrest.
Young, in his Thursday order, claimed that there was a “concerted action of the highest Cabinet Officials of the Executive Branch deliberately to violate the First Amendment right of Free Speech of the Plaintiffs’ noncitizen members,” and he issued an order mandating an automatic stay of proceedings if the administration attempts to deport a foreign student who is part of one of the two groups suing them.
The judge outlined that if a noncitizen can prove he or she was a member of one of the groups before March 25, 2025, and continued to be one through Sept. 30, and that they have not been convicted of a crime or had their visa expire, then they are entitled to an automatic pause of deportation efforts proceedings.
“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 ruling said.
The automatic stay is similar to a standing order filed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, which provides an automatic two-day pause on the deportation of an illegal immigrant who files a habeas corpus petition in that judicial district.
JUDGE ‘ABUSED ITS DISCRETION’ BY ORDERING TRUMP TO FUND ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS, APPEALS COURT SAYS
The ruling from Young comes weeks after a federal appeals court ruled a district court had no jurisdiction to release Mahmoud Khalil from immigration detention, finding his claims should have been handled by an immigration court instead. Khalil was stripped of his legal status and set for deportation by the Trump administration after being involved in unruly anti-Israel protests.
Although the Immigration and Nationality Act explicitly took district courts out of the process for challenging deportations, federal district court judges have still found ways to slow down and halt deportations in various cases, including with pro-Palestinian foreign students.