After two weeks of trial before Judge William G. Young in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the case challenging the Trump administration’s policy of ideological deportation is drawing to a close. This was the first major trial of President Trump’s second term. Over eight days of witness testimony, it uncovered a wealth of new detail about the ideological-deportation policy and its effects on campuses across the country.

• Government officials traced the implementation of the ideological-deportation policy from the decision to investigate student protesters all the way through their arrests.
  • A senior Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official, Peter Hatch, testified that the agency assembled what it called a “Tiger Team” in early 2025 to investigate student protesters.
    • The Tiger Team decided who to investigate by relying mainly on lists compiled by Canary Mission, a right-wing, pro-Israel website that catalogs students, faculty, and others whom it deems to have engaged in anti-Israel speech. The Tiger Team rapidly compiled around 200 reports based on a list of 5,000 people identified on the Canary Mission website.
    • In his testimony, Hatch walked through ICE-compiled dossiers on several student protesters that highlighted their pro-Palestinian speech and association and referenced their Canary Mission profiles. These dossiers were provided to plaintiffs on the morning of trial and shown in open court—the first time that anyone outside the government had seen them.
    • ICE official Peter Hatch on the order to investigate protesters identified by Canary Mission: “That we should look at the individuals named in the Canary Mission website and . . . in that process, when we look at an individual and do research on an individual, it is our process to do a[] [dossier] when we have relevant information and activities. . . . Which shows why we needed a Tiger Team. A normal division, a normal unit or section or group of analysts . . . operating in our normal organizational construct couldn’t handle that workload.”
• Another senior ICE official, Andre Watson, testified that he reviewed and signed off on the letters referring student protesters to the State Department for deportation—part of what he characterized as a new program developed by the agency in response to President Trump’s executive orders targeting those protesters.
  • He testified that these letters relied on the Tiger Team’s dossiers, which discuss protesters’ pro-Palestinian views and include material from Canary Mission. He also testified that Khalil’s referral letter included a conclusion that he “violate[d] President Trump’s Executive Orders” and a tentative conclusion that his actions “may be sufficient for the Secretary of State to determine there are compelling adverse foreign policy consequences to the U.S. from Mr. Khalil’s presence here.” These letters were turned over to plaintiffs during trial but are not yet public.
  • Watson also testified that he has never declined to refer a case to the State Department: “Q. In fact in every case you have received a [dossier] as part of the new program we’ve been discussing, you’ve referred it to the State Department? A. (Pause.) Yes.”
• A senior State Department official, John Armstrong, testified that—following the referrals from ICE—he either signed off on or passed along to Secretary Rubio “action memos” that recommended the deportation of student protesters.
  • Armstrong admitted that statements critical of Israel or U.S. foreign policy could subject a visa or green card holder to deportation. These action memos were also turned over to plaintiffs during trial but are not yet public.
    • State Department official John Armstrong on statements that could lead to deportation: “Q. Now in your view, the phrase, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ could be covered by the endorsing, espousing, supporting a terrorist organization provision, correct? A. It’s basically calling for genocide of all Israelis, because there’s no space for Israelis in that ‘river to the sea.’ . . . Q. A statement calling for an arms embargo on Israel could be covered, correct? A. It could be. . . . Q. A statement calling for limiting military aid to Israel could be covered, correct? A. In my opinion, yes.”
  • Armstrong conceded that Öztürk’s action memo highlighted her op-ed and her attenuated connection with a pro-Palestinian student group, and that it recommended her deportation despite concluding that ICE “has not . . . provided any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally.”
  • Armstrong also testified that he discussed the revocation of student visas with senior officials at the State Department and the White House, including Stephen Miller.
  • Testimony from Armstrong and Andre Watson also revealed that the State Department’s review process proceeded with astonishing speed—for instance, the ICE-to-State referral letter for Khalil was issued only one day before Khalil was ultimately arrested, and the referral letter for Mahdawi was issued only one day before the action memo on his deportation was approved by Secretary Rubio.
• ICE agents who then oversaw the arrests of student protesters testified that the pressure to find and detain the protesters came from senior agency officials. Some of these agents told the court that they had never been asked to conduct arrests based on similar legal or factual grounds.
  • ICE agent Patrick Cunningham on the top-down pressure that spurred Öztürk’s arrest: “We did, we prioritized it. . . . [L]ike I said, I can’t recall a time that it’s come top-down like this with a visa revocation, . . . under my purview anyway. And so with the superiors that were . . . inquiring about this, it made it a priority, because we worked for them.”
  • ICE agent Darren McCormack on what his superiors told him about the rush to detain Khalil: “At some point I was made aware that the Secretary of State and/or the White House had an interest in Mr. Khalil.”
• Several professors—two citizens and three noncitizens—testified to the ideological-deportation policy’s devastating effects on university campuses across the country, explaining how the policy has chilled their speech and that of their colleagues and students.
  • Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC-Irvine and the general counsel of the AAUP, on how the policy has affected the organization and its members: “We haven’t heard the voices of our noncitizen members, we haven’t had their advocacy and insight in our organization, and, . . . given that the core of the organization is to protect academic freedom and shared governance, we feel that this is an existential threat to the organization more broadly.”

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected]