Joanna Slater

A Tufts University graduate student was among those targeted after the Trump administration created a “tiger team” to investigate pro-Palestinian activists.

The efforts to detain and deport noncitizen activists earlier this year represented an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment, the ruling says. 

After legal setbacks in the cases of several high-profile student protesters, the administration faces a broad challenge that seeks to stop the detentions.

Khalil, a prominent leader in campus protests over the war in Gaza, was the first high-profile noncitizen activist to be detained as part of a crackdown on alleged antisemitism.

The Trump administration’s cuts were illegal and discriminatory, a federal judge said Monday.

Khalil has been detained since March after the Trump administration began targeting students for pro-Palestinian activism.

Alexander, born in Israel and raised in New Jersey, joined the Israel Defense Forces after high school and was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student, had been held in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana since she was seized by masked federal agents outside her home near Boston.

The ruling is a setback to the Trump administration crackdown on international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism.

Mohsen Mahdawi was detained as part of a crackdown by the Trump administration on international students. A federal judge ordered him released Wednesday.