University professors sue to stop Trump detentions of pro-Palestine students and faculty
Boston, Massachusetts - University professors are suing to stop the Trump administration from detaining and deporting noncitizen students and faculty who take a stand for Palestine.
The American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Trump administration of violating the Constitution's First and Fifth Amendments, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, in targeting campus community members for their pro-Palestine activism.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, and President Donald Trump are named in the suit.
"By design, the agencies' policy has created a climate of repression and fear on university campuses," the complaint reads.
"The agencies’ policy, in other words, is accomplishing its purpose: it is terrorizing students and faculty for their exercise of First Amendment rights in the past, intimidating them from exercising those rights now, and silencing political viewpoints that the government disfavors."
The lawsuit follows the high-profile arrests of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Georgetown University post-doctoral researcher Badar Khan Suri, as well as the targeting of Columbia student Yunseo Chung and Cornell University grad student Momodou Taal.
Cases challenging the Trump administration's actions toward those individuals are underway, but the latest filing calls into question the government's overall approach to deportation when it comes to campus Palestine solidarity protests.
"The First Amendment means the government can’t arrest, detain, or deport people for lawful political expression – it’s as simple as that," Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, said in a press release.
"This practice is one we’d ordinarily associate with the most repressive political regimes, and it should have no place in our democracy."
Cover photo: REUTERS