A federal judge in California ruled that it was unconstitutional for State Secretary Marco Rubio to use immigration law to deport students for their opinions on Israel's war in Gaza. File Photo by Graeme Sloan/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A federal judge in California on Friday ruled that the Trump administration violated the Constitution's First and Fifth Amendments when it sought to deport international students critical of Israel.
Judge Noël Wise, of the Northern District of California, sided with student journalists at the Stanford Daily, which sued because some of its noncitizen writers had been afraid of deportation for expressing opinions critical of the administration's policies.
"Foundational to America's enduring democracy are our freedoms of speech and the press embodied in the First Amendment," Wise wrote in a 90-page ruling. "In the United States, free speech, including the freedom to criticize the government and its leaders, is not a sign of our democracy's fragility. It is evidence of its strength."
Wise ruled that it was unconstitutional for State Secretary Marco Rubio to use immigration law to deport students for their opinions.
