Center for a Stateless Society

ALT IV.I. FREE SPEECH As discussed in the previous section, immigration restrictions were used to stifle dissent in both the early republic and in the 20th century. Use of immigration enforcement to crack down on political dissent has continued in recent years. Under the Donald Trump administration, ICE has detained multiple people for their political speech, particularly for their criticisms of the Israeli government’s warfare in Gaza. For instance, Syrian-born immigrant Mahmoud Khalil was detained, and the administration

ALT sought his deportation as retaliation for his involvement in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University. His lawyers called this “open repression of student activism and political speech” (quoted in McCausland 2025). Rumeysza Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University, was detained by ICE for writing an op-ed calling on Tufts University administration to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide, apologize for University President Sunil Kumar’s statements, disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel” (Ozturk et al. 2024; Ozturk 2025). U.S. District Judge William Sessions III rightly saw this as a violation of freedom of speech and warned that it could have a chilling effect on the speech of “millions and millions” of people (quoted in Crampton and Cheney 2025). Indeed, in at least five cases, “federal judges have forcefully rejected President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport pro-Palestinian student activists, issuing one stinging ruling