New documents unsealed Thursday as a part of litigation brought by The Intercept and other news outlets reveal a critical discrepancy in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s rationale for attempting to deport five international students and academics last year.
While Rubio and the Trump administration claimed in public that they wanted to deport students including Mahmoud Khalil and Yunseo Chung for supporting terrorism, internal Department of Homeland Security and State Department documents instead cite their advocacy for Palestinian rights in protests and writings — activities protected by the First Amendment.
Rubio and the administration have repeatedly conflated pro-Palestinian speech with support for Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization, but a DHS memo shows the government did not find any evidence that Chung or Khalil provided “material support” — meaning cash payment, property, or services — to any terror group. Even in their own communications, DHS and the State Department acknowledged they were in uncharted territory and likely to face backlash.
“DHS has not identified any alternative grounds of removability that would be applicable to Chung and Khalil, including the ground of removability for aliens who have provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization or terrorist activity,” reads the March 8 memo. “We are not aware of any prior exercises of the Secretary’s removal authority in [the Immigration and Nationality Act] section 237(a)(4)(c), and given their [lawful permanent resident] status, Chung and Khalil are likely to challenge their removal under this authority, and courts may scrutinize the basis for these determinations.”
Yet the following day, Rubio claimed that Khalil and the other students were supporting terrorist organizations. “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” wrote Rubio on X on March 9, referencing Khalil’s arrest.
The hundreds of pages of documents were evidence in a lawsuit brought against President Donald Trump, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and DHS by five students and academics — Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, Mohsen Mahdawi, Khalil, and Chung — who alleged that their deportation orders violated their freedom of expression.
The students won their case last year, but until Thursday, the trove of documents remained under lock and key after the judge agreed to seal the records on the State Department’s behalf. At the request of The Intercept, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Center for Investigative Reporting, Massachusetts District Judge William G. Young ultimately unsealed the records, revealing intimate details about the State Department’s persecution of students speaking out in support of Palestine.
The documents include a series of memos sent from the Department of Homeland Security to the State Department recommending deportation orders for the five students. The correspondence overwhelmingly focuses on the students’ participation in on campus protests and advocacy.
In the memos, commissioned by Rubio, the State Department and DHS argued that the students posed a threat to U.S. foreign policy because the protests they participated in fostered a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” and undermined “U.S policy to combat anti-semitism around the world.” DHS and the State Department repeatedly based accusations of antisemitism and supporting terrorism on the students’ public speech, often noting that the First Amendment could make it difficult for the U.S. to win their deportation cases.
In Öztürk’s case, a State Department document dated March 21, 2025, noted that her visa had been revoked because she “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later banned from campus.”
A separate document from the State Department dated March 15, referencing an assessment from DHS, found that Suri was “actively supporting Hamas terrorism” and “actively spreads its propaganda,” based on Facebook posts.
However, the State Department memo cautioned that Suri was likely to challenge his removal on First Amendment grounds. “Given the reliance on Suri’s public statements as an academic, and the potential that a court may consider his actions inextricably tied to speech protected under the First Amendment, it is likely that courts will closely scrutinize the basis for this determination,” officials wrote.
While the students won their lawsuit against the government, an appeals court earlier this month reversed the decision that released Khalil from custody. He still has time to appeal the reversal before he can legally be detained, but the White House has said the government plans to rearrest him and deport him to Algeria.
The State Department did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment by the time of publication.
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