In an amicus brief signed last week, a total of 55 student media outlets and newsroom leaders argued the Trump administration’s arrest of international students largely for pro-Palestinian speech was having a chilling effect on student journalism across the US.
“If students believe it is no longer worth it to share their thoughts in a documented capacity – due to the prospect of being deported, detained or otherwise punished – we simply cannot do our jobs,” wrote student journalist Alice Qin, as quoted in the brief.
“This is a precarious moment in higher education where every university desperately needs a witness… student newspapers are crucial bodies of historical information for universities,” Qin continued.
The document supports Stanford Daily’s initial lawsuit, filed on August 6, which argued the Trump administration’s arrests and attempted deportations of international students for writing op-eds and peacefully attending protests violated free speech rights protected under the constitution.
“Their attack is casting a pall of fear over millions of noncitizens, who worry that voicing the ‘wrong’ opinion about America or Israel will result in deportation,” argued the plaintiffs, which include Stanford Daily and two legal noncitizens who feared deportation due to pro-Palestinian speech.
The brief highlights the government’s high-profile arrests of Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi and Rümeysa Öztürk in early 2025, and its “audacious characterisation of their speech as cause for removal from the United States”.
It explains that “almost immediately” after the arrests, student-run newsrooms began experiencing a “crisis of unprecedented scale” due to the self-censorship of international student writers.
This is a precarious moment in higher education where every university desperately needs a witness
Alice Qin, The Duke Chronicle
This involved international student journalists declining to comment on topics relating to the war in Gaza and seeking the removal of previous articles, as well as writers for the Stanford Daily quitting the newspaper, according to the lawsuit.
The Trump administration’s crusade against international students in the US this spring saw 6,000 student visas revoked, many of which were due to minor traffic infractions or “support for terrorism”, the state department claimed.
In cases where students were arrested and detained for participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations or speech, the government argued they had expressed antisemitic behaviour.
Earlier this month, a US federal court ruled Trump’s deportation of international students for pro-Palestinian advocacy illegal, declaring non-immigrants’ “unequivocal” rights to free expression.
But a motion from government lawyers in Stanford Daily’s case framed the issue as a matter of protecting US foreign policy goals, maintaining that congress and the president had “wide discretion” to legislate and “vindicate” with respect to student visa holders.
A senior state department official told The PIE: “A US visa is a privilege, not a right. The United States is under no obligation to allow foreign aliens to come to our country, commit acts of anti-American, pro-terrorist, and antisemitic hate, or incite violence.”
Aside from the Columbia Daily Spectator, all Ivy League student papers have signed the brief. It is supported by a further 11 student newsroom leaders alongside the Student Press Law Centre, the Associated Collegiate Press and the College Media Association.
The brief’s signatories are urging the court to enjoin the administration from continuing its campaign against the free speech of international students, as protected by the constitution.
“At stake is nothing less than the ability of student journalists – citizen and noncitizen alike – to engage freely in the democratic enterprise that education is meant to foster,” it writes.
The plaintiffs are represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), with the hearing set for November 19, 2025.
