Overview

• The Stanford Daily and two anonymous student writers filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, naming Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions against speech-based deportation threats.
• The complaint challenges two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that allow officials to deport noncitizens for speech deemed to “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest” or to revoke visas at their discretion.
• It documents how visa-holding student journalists at The Stanford Daily have declined assignments on Gaza protests, removed previously published articles and even quit the newsroom out of fear their coverage could trigger deportation or visa revocation.
• Represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and local counsel, the plaintiffs argue that applying these immigration provisions to peaceful pro-Palestinian expression violates the First Amendment rights of lawfully present students.
• Following temporary federal court blocks of deportations for activists such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, this case could set a decisive precedent on courts’ authority to enjoin what critics call ideological deportations.