Judge who blasted Trump as 'authoritarian' blocks US from deporting pro-Palestinian campus activists

By Fox News · Fox News

A federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration this week from detaining or otherwise "retaliating" against pro-Palestinian academics and student protesters on college campuses nationwide, saying in a new court order that plaintiffs have the right to challenge any attempts to remove them from the U.S. in federal court. U.S. District Judge William G. Young, a Reagan appointee, had ruled last fall that the Trump administration's actions violated the First Amendment and amounted to what he described as an "unconstitutional conspiracy." "There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of what the First Amendment is by this government," he said. FEDERAL JUDGE LAUNCHES SCATHING BROADSIDE OF TRUMP'S EFFORTS TO DEPORT PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS The new order codified what Young described last week as "remedial sanctions" that he said he planned to issue to protect "certain plaintiffs’ noncitizen members" from "any retribution for the free exercise of their constitutional rights." The judge's order applies to pro-Palestinian noncitizen academic protesters and students on college campuses whom he previously ruled had been "illegally" and "intentionally" targeted by Trump officials. Young ruled in September that noncitizens in the U.S. have the same free speech protections as citizens, and vowed to enshrine those protections in a court order. The new order says all the plaintiffs in the case have the right to seek relief via the federal courts before any retaliatory removal. The only caveats, he said, are that the individuals in question must show that they are a member of either the American Association of University Professors, or the Middle East Studies Association — the two academic groups that sued the Trump administration last year. They must also submit documentation proving that their U.S. immigration status had not expired, and showing that they had not been accused of any crimes since last September. "Upon such proof, it shall be presumed that the alteration in…