Federal judge blocks Trump-era visa cancellations targeting pro-Palestinian students

In a decisive San Jose ruling, Judge Noel Wise found that the Trump administration's strategy of using immigration statutes to strip visas and launch deportation cases against non-citizen college students for advocating pro-Palestinian positions breaches constitutional safeguards. The case originated from a complaint by The Stanford Daily, which claimed its student journalists with visas were forced to self-censor over the policy.

Wise highlighted that the law allowed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to deem a non-citizen’s speech a threat to foreign policy and revoke visas at his discretion, a practice she deemed viewpoint-based discrimination. The judgment references a prior decision by Judge William Young that reached a comparable conclusion. Representatives from the State Department and Department of Homeland Security have not offered comment, while civil-rights lawyer Conor Fitzpatrick praised the ruling as a reaffirmation of free speech rights for all residents.