(Washington) The Trump Government illegally music the solidarity movement with the Palestinians of Gaza against Israel on university campuses by arresting and trying to expel foreign students for their speech alone, an American federal judge concludes on Tuesday.
This Boston judge considers that the Minister of Internal Security, Kristi Noem, and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, “abused large powers of their services to launch procedures for expulsion against Propalestinian foreigners essentially because of their political discourse protected by the Constitution”.
He notably quotes the cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Propalestinian activist of Columbia University in New York, or the Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk, doctoral student of Tofts University in Massachusetts, both arrested in March by immigration police officers (ICE) and released after long months of detention.
The objective of such procedures is to “repress Propalestinian student demonstrations and terrorize other foreign propalers (or others) in a similar situation in order to silence them on the grounds that their opinions were not welcome,” said the judge.
However, contrary to the interpretation made by President Donald Trump, the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees freedom of expression, applies to everyone, whether they are American or not, underlines the judge.
“The freedom of expression of anyone is unlimited, of course, but these limits are the same for everyone, citizens as well as foreign,” according to the text of the decision.
During the trial, managers of the investigation services of the Ministry of Internal Security testified to having been largely supported to determine the people to target on lists of thousands of names established by pro-Israeli organizations, observes the magistrate.
This was thus the case of Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, both publicly denounced by in particular the organization called “Canary Mission”.
“We are not and we must not become a country that imprison and expel people because we are afraid of what they have to say to ourselves,” worries the judge.
Donald Trump launched an offensive against major American universities, accusing them of leaving the Palestinian support movements to the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, which he assimilates to anti -Semitism demonstrations.
