Today, in AAUP v. Rubio, federal district Judge William G. Young (appointed by Ronald Reagan) ruled that speech-based deportations of foreign students and academics violate the First Amendment. Here is his summary of his long and detailed ruling (which runs to 161 pages in all):
This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court –- squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally "yes, they do." "No law" means "no law." The First Amendment does not draw President Trump's invidious distinction [between citizens and non-citizens] and it is not to be found in our history or jurisprudence… No one's freedom of speech is unlimited, of course, but these limits are the same for both citizens and non-citizens alike.
With this constitution ruling firmly undergirding its approach, the Court here held a full hearing and a nine-day bench trial on the issue of whether the rights of these
plaintiffs to constitutional freedom of speech have been unconstitutionally chilled by the deliberate conduct of any or all of these Public Official defendants. The Court heard 15 witnesses and admitted 250 exhibits consisting of documents, photographs, and video clips.Having carefully considered the entirety of the record, this Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with the subordinate officials and agents of each of them, deliberately and with purposeful aforethought, did so concert their actions and those of their two departments intentionally to chill the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble of the non-citizen plaintiff members of the plaintiff associations. What remains after issuing this opinion is to consider what, if anything, may be done to remedy these constitutional violations.
