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‘Unjustifiable’: Trump Administration Responds to Deportations Lawsuit
FILE PHOTO: People walk on the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2025. Photo: Faith Ninivaggi via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to deny a preliminary injunction request as part of a lawsuit challenging its attempt to deport pro-Hamas activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and three of its local chapters sued the federal government to halt deportation proceedings involving expatriate pro-Hamas activists enrolled in American institutions of higher education, arguing that the allegedly seditious contents of their speech are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Filed in March, the legal complaint came several weeks after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) high-profile arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University alumnus who was an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover and other disturbances in the New York City area this semester. Similar action has since been taken against others, including Cornell University graduate student Momodou Taal, a dual citizen of Gambia and the United Kingdom, and Columbia University student Yunseo Chung, a noncitizen legal resident from South Korea.
The AAUP and its chapters at Harvard University, Rutgers University, and New York University, along with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), argued in court documents that the Trump administration’s “policy has created a climate of repression and fear,” charging that ICE 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.”
Monday’s filing constitutes the Trump administration’s first challenge to the case.
“Plaintiffs fundamentally misunderstand how the First Amendment applies in this context” government lawyers argued in the pleading. “They conflate the fact that the First Amendment applies at all to aliens, with the First Amendment applying in full to them.”
The government went on to explain that Khalil and other aliens deemed as posing a threat to national security lack complete constitutional protections with which American citizens are endowed by right, noting that past case law has determined that while they are entitled to “freedom of speech and of press,” protections of those freedoms are “less robust.” Responding to the lawsuit’s charge that the deportation of Khalil, and others, is “ideologically motivated” — that is, that the Trump administration aims to purge the country of jihadist supporters — it added that the US Supreme Court ruled in 1951 that the federal government may constitutionally deport aliens who hold seditious beliefs such as communism, as is prescribed by the Alien Registration Act of 1940.
In conclusion, the government argued that pausing the deportation policy would undermine the public interest.
“Plaintiffs seek an injunction that would extend over immigration against all ‘noncitizen students and faculty’ in the country,” the filing says. “That is unjustifiable.”
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, pro-Hamas activists in the US, citizen and noncitizen, have allegedly violated the civil rights of Jewish students, penned extremist manifestos calling for revolutionary violence and overthrowing the government, and contributed to the spread of anti-Western beliefs.
Additionally, pro-Hamas activists have perpetrated gang assaults, threatened to commit mass murders of Jewish college students, and vandalized private property, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Recently, a lawsuit, first reported by the The Free Press, alleged that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the principal organizer of pro-Hamas activities on US campuses, received advanced knowledge of the Oct. 7 atrocities, suggesting a level of coordination between US-based anti-Zionists and jihadist terrorist groups that could pose a danger to national security.
President Donald Trump initiated the removal of pro-Hamas green-card holders living in the US through a January executive order which called for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” A major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction on college campuses. Trump has also said that foreign students who hold demonstrations in support of Hamas “will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.”
The policy has many detractors, such as AAUP president Todd Wolfson, who has said that it undermines civil liberties.
Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in March that the administration’s actions are legal and safeguard US interests.
“The Trump administration’s new policy of deporting pro-Hamas demonstrators who are not citizens is an important step toward addressing problems related to Hamas in America,” he explained in a statement. “The Immigration and Naturalization Act clearly gives the Secretary of State the authority to deport aliens on a variety of grounds, including endangering public safety and national security.”
A Louisiana immigration judge, Jamee E. Comans, recently agreed with President Trump, as well as Mr. Joffe, ruling that the federal government has “established clear and convincing evidence that [Mahmoud Khalil] is removable” due to “severe, adverse foreign policy consequences” carried by continued residing in the US. Khalil’s attorneys have until April 23 to petition the appeal his deportation.
If they do not do so, Khalil will be repatriated either to Syria or Algeria, two countries in which he reportedly holds citizenship.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Unjustifiable’: Trump Administration Responds to Deportations Lawsuit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Series About Dutch Jewish Woman in Nazi-Occupied Amsterdam Premieres at Venice Film Festival
Venice, 82nd Venice International Film Festival 2025 – Day 7, Photocall for the film “Etty.” Pictured are Hagai Levi – Director, Julia Windischbauer, Sebastian Koch, Claire Bender, and Leopold Witte. Photo: Pool Photo Events 06IPA/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A six-part television series inspired by the true story of a Dutch Jewish woman who wrote diaries and letters in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam made its world premiere out of competition on Sunday at the 82nd Venice Film Festival.
The Dutch and German-language drama series “Etty” is from Emmy Award-winning Israeli director and creator Hagai Levi, the visionary behind “The Affair,” “Our Boys,” and the remake of Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage,” which he premiered four years ago at the Venice Film Festival. Levi also created the Israeli television series “BeTipul,” which was remade around the world as “In Therapy” and “In Treatment.” He attended the “Etty” premiere at Venice with the show’s cast, including lead stars Julia Windischbauer and Sebastian Koch.
“Etty” is inspired by the life and diaries of Dutch-Jewish writer Etty Hillesum, who chronicled for 18 months her experiences living in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. She refused to go into hiding and wrote from Amsterdam as well as the Westerbork transit camp. She was deported and murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 at age 29. Her diary entries and letters were published in 1979 and have gained global recognition. They have since been published in 18 languages.
“In Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, 27-year-old Jewish Etty Hillesum begins therapy,” reads a synopsis of the series “Etty,” provided by the Venice Film Festival. “What starts as personal exploration becomes a spiritual awakening, documented in her diaries. Guided by psycho-chirologist Julius Spier, her mentor and lover, she undergoes a radical inner transformation. She’ll discover that even when all is taken, one can remain free within.”
Levi said he discovered a book about Hillesum’s diaries roughly 10 years ago and “after breathless reading, I felt I had found something I could talk about for the rest of my life.” He explained that Hillesum’s diary entries also helped him during his own personal journey and exploration of his Jewish faith.
“I grew up a pious Orthodox Jew. At 20, I left that world forcefully, violently, abandoning questions of God, faith, and meaning,” he said in a director’s statement shared by the festival. “I tried to fill the resulting void — and depression that came with it — with work, ambition, success; mostly in vain. Hillesum offered another option: a different religiosity, a new sense of faith, beyond institutional religion.”
Levi added that at the center of Hillesum’s diary “is a leap: from a neurotic, self-absorbed woman to someone with deep autonomy. That process is accelerated by the threat she faces as a Jewish woman … At some point, she knows that even when everything is taken from her — her home, her freedom, even her life — she still has an inner core that can’t be lost.”
The award-winning director noted that the messages shared in Hillesum’s diaries are still relevant and must be shared, “especially after the horrors that shake the world of so many, over the past two years,” which may be a reference to the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
He said Hillesum’s “rejection of hatred, solidarity with the unprivileged, and inner freedom have brought solace and meaning to countless readers over the 44 years since her diaries were published,” including the filmmaker himself.
“Above all, this is a love story: the love of a young woman for the man who awakened her soul, and out of that awakening — a love for life, God, and all humankind,” he said in conclusion.
Watch the trailer for “Etty” below.
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Israeli President to Meet Pope Leo at the Vatican on Thursday
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in Riga, Latvia, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will travel to the Vatican on Thursday to meet Pope Leo, who has recently stepped up his calls for an end to the war in Gaza.
The one-day visit is being made at the invitation of the pope, Herzog’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.
The president will also meet Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican‘s chief diplomat, and tour the Vatican Archives and Library, it added.
“Central to their meetings will be the efforts to secure the release of the hostages, the fight against global antisemitism, and the safeguarding of Christian communities in the Middle East, alongside discussions on other political matters,” the presidency said.
Leo, the first US pope, last week issued a “strong appeal” for an to end to the nearly two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas, calling for a permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages held in Gaza, and the provision of humanitarian aid.
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Iran Warns US Missile Demands Block Path to Nuclear Talks
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani speaks after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
The path to nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States is not closed but US demands for curbs on Iranian missiles are obstructing prospects for talks, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday.
A sixth round of Iran-US talks was suspended after the start of a 12-day war in June, in which Israel and the US struck Iranian nuclear facilities and Iran retaliated with waves of ballistic missiles against Israel.
“We indeed pursue rational negotiations. By raising unrealizable issues such as missile restrictions, they set a path that negates any talks,” the secretary of Iran‘s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, said in a post on X.
Western countries fear Iran‘s uranium enrichment program could yield material for an atomic warhead and that it seeks to develop a ballistic missile to carry one.
Iran says its nuclear program is only for electricity generation and other civilian uses and that it is enriching uranium as fuel for these purposes.
It has denied seeking to create missiles capable of carrying nuclear payloads and says its defense capabilities cannot be open to negotiation in any talks over its atomic program.
Larijani’s comments follow last week’s launch by France, Germany, and Britain of a “snapback mechanism” that could reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
The three countries, also known as the E3, have urged Iran to engage in nuclear negotiations with the US, among other conditions, in order to have the imposition of the snapback sanctions delayed for up to six months.