A federal judge tore into senior Trump administration officials for what he described as sweeping violations of the Constitution as part of a “retribution” campaign against critics.
U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, didn’t hold back at a Thursday hearing in Boston federal court, accusing the administration of an “unconstitutional conspiracy” to deprive people of their rights.
The comments came as the court weighed remedies for the administration’s detentions of pro-Palestinian students at U.S. universities, a campaign the judge has already ruled was unlawful. In unusually blunt language, the judge said the administration’s approach to free speech was rooted in fear and aimed at silencing those who did not fall in line.
“Talking straight here,” Young said during the hearing. “The big problem in this case is that the Cabinet secretaries and ostensibly, the president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment.”
“We cast around the word ‘authoritarian,’” he said. “I don’t, in this context, treat that in a pejorative sense, and I use it carefully, but it’s fairly clear that this president believes, as an authoritarian, that when he speaks, everyone, everyone in Article II is going to toe the line absolutely.”
He singled out Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, expressing disbelief that such actions were tied to officials at the highest levels of government. “The secretary of state,” he said, “the senior Cabinet officer in our history involved in this.”
The hearing shed further light on how the administration’s campus crackdown operated. Testimony showed that senior officials redirected personnel who typically analyze transnational criminal networks to instead compile reports on students involved in pro-Palestinian protests.
Those reports drew heavily from Canary Mission, an opaque pro-Israel group that maintains profiles of activists it claims promote hostility toward the U.S., Israel, and Jews.
According to testimony, Homeland Security Investigations produced between 100 and 200 such reports, many of which were forwarded to the State Department with recommendations to revoke visas or green cards. Some students were later arrested by masked agents, transferred across state lines, and held for weeks in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities despite not being charged with crimes.
The plaintiffs, the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, argue the campaign was designed to punish protected speech. Administration officials, by contrast, have framed the detentions as part of a fight against antisemitism, alleging—without presenting evidence—that the students supported violence or Hamas.
The White House pushed back after the hearing. Spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Washington Post that “it’s bizarre that this judge is broadcasting his intent to engage in left-wing activism against the democratically-elected President of the United States.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a separate email that “there is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers.”
Young said he expects to issue an order next week that would shield noncitizen members of the plaintiff groups from changes to their immigration status, except under narrowly defined circumstances.
The White House has been contacted for comment.
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