BOSTON—The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) today filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in their lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members who participate in pro-Palestinian protests and other protected First Amendment activities. Represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Ahilan Arulanantham, and Zimmer, Citron & Clarke LLP, the lawsuit filed last week alleges that the administration’s ideological-deportation policy violates the First Amendment by targeting constitutionally protected speech that Americans have a right to hear and engage with.
Following executive orders issued by President Trump in January, the federal agencies that enforce the immigration laws have arrested and detained several people associated with U.S. colleges and universities, including a legal permanent resident, on the basis of constitutionally protected speech and association. The administration has also supplied universities with the names of other students they intend to target and has launched new social media surveillance programs aimed at identifying still others. Today’s motion seeks a temporary pause—for the duration of the litigation—of the Trump administration’s ideological-deportation policy and its related campaign of threats against noncitizen students and faculty who engage in pro-Palestinian expression and association.
The following can be attributed to Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute:
“Foreign students and faculty urgently need relief from the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. No student or faculty member should have to live in fear that they could be seized at any moment simply for exercising their right to political protest.”
The following can be attributed to Todd Wolfson, American Association of University Professors:
“Our international students and scholars are living in terror at the moment. They fear that masked immigration authorities will grab them off the street or come to their door and take them away from their families—for nothing more than exercising their right as legal residents to speak their mind about Israel and Palestine or any other opinion the Trump administration doesn’t like. We hope the judge understands that stopping this couldn’t be more urgent.”
The following can be attributed to Aslı Bâli, president of MESA:
“The Trump administration’s ideological-deportation policy risks becoming a runaway train. We request that the court act as a temporary brake. The administration will otherwise continue to terrorize faculty and students across the country, depriving both citizens and noncitizens of their fundamental constitutional rights.”
Read today’s motion here.
Read more about the case here.
In addition to the AAUP and MESA, plaintiffs include AAUP chapters at Harvard, Rutgers, and NYU. The associations’ members include tens of thousands of faculty and students across the country.
Lawyers on the case include Krishnan, Jameel Jaffer, Alex Abdo, Carrie DeCell, Xiangnong (George) Wang, Talya Nevins, and Jackson Busch for the Knight First Amendment Institute, Ahilan Arulanantham, and Edwina Clarke for Zimmer, Citron & Clarke.
For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].