WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administrations actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.

The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his second term earlier this year.

The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.

Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

Netanyahu moves to oust head of domestic security service

Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.

Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.

Rubio defended the decision to revoke Khalil’s green card on Sunday, saying that the Trump administration was revoking visas on a daily basis.

“If you tell us when you apply for a visa, ‘I’m coming to the US to participate in pro-Hamas events,’ that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States of America,” Rubio said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “If you had told us that you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa.”

The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.” This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections.

The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.

Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.” The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.

Netanyahu moves to oust Shin Bet head

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the head of the country’s Shin Bet domestic security service Ronen Bar that he plans to bring his dismissal before the government this week, a statement from Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday.

There was no immediate comment from Shin Bet or from Bar, whose dismissal would likely draw criticism in Israel. Netanyahu and Bar’s relations were often described in Israeli media as tense throughout the conflict against Hamas in Gaza.

In a video statement, Netanyahu said that he had long lost his confidence in Bar and that trust in the head of the domestic security service was especially crucial at a time of conflict.

Shin Bet is currently part of an investigation into possible links between employees in Netanyahu’s office and Qatar, which has been mediating ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2025