Academic groups of teachers and academics have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming that the arrests of non-citizens who participate in pro-palestinian protests are unconstitutional.
The American Association of University Teachers, which has chapters in universities throughout the country, and the Association of Studies of the Middle East filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, claiming that the new policies for the application of Trump’s immigration violate the first amendment, which consecrates freedom of expression and the assembly, and the fifth amendment, which guarantees due process.
The lawsuit was filed against Donald Trump, the State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Department of National Security, Secretary Kristi Noem, the Interim Director of Immigration and Customs Control of the United States, Todd Lyons, and the Government in the Massachusetts district.
In January, Donald Trump signed executive orders that guarantee that non -citizens in the United States do not have hostility towards the country, do not advocate foreign terrorists and combat anti -Semitism.
However, the complaint says that orders have extended its scope in an “ideological deportation policy.”
The Trump administration has incorrectly labeled any discourse that supports the Palestinian and critical human rights with the military actions of Israel as “pro-breaks,” says the complaint.
The policies have seen the immigration authorities arrest and arrest several people affiliated with the university, including Mahmoud Khalil and at least four others, including one that fled to Canada for fear of arrest, says the complaint.
In addition, the Trump administration supposedly provided universities with the names of other students “intend to aim under politics” and “launched new social media surveillance programs aimed at identifying others to others.”
Policies have “created a climate of repression and fear in university campuses,” says the presentation.
“The policy of the agencies, in other words, is achieving its purpose: it is terrifying students and teachers for their exercise of the rights of the first amendment in the past, intimidating to exercise those rights now and silence the political views that the government disadvantages,” says the complaint.
The complaint listed several examples of students and professors detained, including the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of 30 years and student from the University of Columbia who was arrested on March 8 in his apartment on the Campus of New York City.
He has not been accused of any crime, but the administration claimed that Khalil was involved in activities aligned with Hamas, which his lawyers deny. He is being arrested in an ice installation in Louisiana.
Another case was that of Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen who is a doctoral student in Columbia and attached assistant professor at the University of New York.
The State Department revoked the student of Srinivasan on March 5 and the immigration authorities were presented at home two days later, but she did not open the door, says the complaint. They returned the next night, but she had fled to Canada.
The National Security Department described Srinivasan as a terrorist sympathizer and is involved in activities that support Hamas without evidence. Srinivasan has played those accusations, says the complaint, and points out that it was involved in protesting against human rights violations in Gaza.
The lawsuit also listed the cases of Ynseo Chung: a 21-year-old permanent legal student and a student at Columbia University who was involved in pro-palestinian protests and on March 10 was informed that his state of legal permanent resident was revoked, and Badar Khan Suri, a national and postdoctoral fellow of the University of Georgetown, which was arrested by ice on March 17. The university described as a pro-Palestinian defender whose visa was revoked this month.
The demand was filed by the AAUP and its chapters at Harvard University, the University of New York and Rutgers.
The groups claim that Trump’s policy prevents them from listening to their non -citizen students and colleagues, makes it impossible for citizen members to organize and participate in political expression with non -citizen members, and make it difficult to benefit from ideas, scholarship and academic projects of non -citizens.
The complaint says that the plaintiffs are harmed by Trump’s policies in which they can no longer learn and interact with non -citizen members as they had done in the past because resources are now diverting “to address the too real possibility that their non -citizen members will be arrested, imprisoned and deported by exercising the rights of the Constitution.”
NBC News has communicated with the Department of Justice and the State Department to comment.
“Taking the buildings, disfiguring private property and harassing Jewish students does not constitute freedom of expression,” said a spokesman for the National Security Department to NBC News on Wednesday.
“It is a privilege that a visa is granted to live and study in the United States of America. When he advocates violence and terrorism, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country,” the spokesman continued.
Todd Wolfson, of the American Association of University Teachers, described Trump’s policies as an invasion of civil liberties and education.
“The Trump administration chases international academics and students who say what they think about Palestine, but do not be wrong: they will not stop there. They will come below for those who teach the history of slavery or who provide the health care that gender affirms or that investigate climate change or that students about their reproductive choices.
“The first amendment means that the government cannot arrest, stop or deport people for legal political expression, it is as simple as that. This practice is one that we would normally associate with the most repressive political regime, and should not take place in our democracy,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the first amendment institute of Knight, which represents the plaintiffs.
