Trump administration is accused of inciting ‘climate of repression’ and stifling free speech on campuses, including Columbia University

US academic groups have sued the Trump administration in an effort to block the deportation of foreign students and scholars who have been targeted for voicing pro-Palestinian views and criticism of Israel.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (Mesa) filed a lawsuit at a US federal court in Boston on Tuesday accusing the administration of fomenting “a climate of repression” on campuses and stifling constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights.

Lawyers acting for the groups warn that the crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech is likely to herald a broad clampdown on dissenting views in higher education and elsewhere.

The suit comes after the high-profile arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian former graduate student of Columbia University in New York, who holds a green card, and Badar Khan Suri, an Indian post-doctoral student at Georgetown University, both of whom are in detention amid government efforts to deport them. Both had been vocal in support of the Palestinians. Lawyers for both men are disputing the legality of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport them.

Another student green card holder, Yunseo Chung, who had also attended protests at Columbia, sued the administration on Monday after immigration officials tried to arrest her. Ice officials told her lawyer that her green card had been revoked. Chung has been in the US since the age of seven.

The academics’ lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges that Donald Trump and other US officials are pursuing an “ideological-deportation policy” and accuses the administration of deliberately suppressing freedom of expression by construing opinions supporting Palestinians and criticising Israel’s military actions in Gaza as “pro-Hamas”.

“Implementing executive orders issued by President Trump in January, the defendant agencies have announced that they intend to carry out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty who participate in pro-Palestinian protests and other related expression and association,” reads the suit.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, are named as the two lead plaintiffs, along with Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), whose agents carried out the arrests of Khalil and Suri.

The suit says the arrests thus far are the tip of the iceberg and that legal action is necessary to stop a potential avalanche of deportations, citing the US president’s description of Khalil’s arrest as “the first of many to come”.

Administration officials “have left no doubt that their new policy entails the arrest, detention, and deportation of noncitizen students and faculty for constitutionally protected speech and association”, says the suit.

The government is attempting to deport Khalil and Suri under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives Rubio the power to order the removal of individuals whose presence is deemed to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

Lawyers filing the suit argue that the detention of Khalil and Suri has already had a chilling effect by “terrorising” students and faculty members into silence in campuses across the country.

“[It] has created a climate of repression and fear on university campuses. Out of fear that they might be arrested and deported for lawful expression and association, some noncitizen students and faculty have stopped attending public protests or resigned from campus groups that engage in political advocacy.

“The agencies’ policy, in other words, is accomplishing its purpose: it is terrorizing students and faculty for their exercise of First Amendment rights in the past, intimidating them from exercising those rights now, and silencing political viewpoints that the government disfavors.”

Ramya Krishnan, of the Knight First Amendment Institute, a non-profit legal organization at Columbia University, and lead attorney in the case, compared the current scenario with the McCarthyite anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

“Even during that era, you did not see the government rounding up students and faculty for engaging in political protest,” she said. “Yet that is what we’re we’re seeing here. I really think this is unprecedented.”

She warned that the administration was using the issue as a dry run to extend speech restrictions to other groups.

“Right now they’re trying to deport noncitizens based on pro-Palestinian speech, but tomorrow, they could try to deport students based on anti-Trump speech,” she said. “This is just one part of a much broader assault on free speech and democratic institutions.

Even naturalized US citizens were not safe, she said. “The administration has a taskforce exploring denaturalization. They’re running a test case here with individuals and groups that they believe are unpopular in society, but there’s nothing to stop this administration from going after citizens engaged in speech that they don’t like, if they succeed here.”

Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP, echoed her warning in a statement: “The Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won’t stop there.

“They’ll come next for those who teach the history of slavery or who provide gender-affirming healthcare or who research climate change or who counsel students about their reproductive choices. We all have to draw a line together.”