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    Some background: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/may/12/thousands-of-university-of-nottingham-staff-told-they-are-at-risk-of-redundancy Not only does Nottingham University have a good academic reputation, the city of Nottingham has a great…

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What rights do immigrants have under the Constitution and what resources are available to help faculty and students here on visas and green cards

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 24–UPDATED (MORE INFORMATION WELCOME IN COMMENTS–PLEASE ONLY POST WITH CONCRETE INFORMATION OR LINKS TO SUCH INFORMATION RELEVANT TO THE ISSUES HERE)

The NYT account is informative but not reassuring:  immigrants have due process rights, but they may not have real First Amendment rights.  A reader writes:

Thank you for your coverage of the ongoing crisis at Columbia and the disaster of the total capitulation. I have a dear friend who is a PhD student there. She is living in total fear — “colleagues on visas are being disappeared”. Please post anything you can on any legal groups or other groups organizing to help Columbia grad students, any kind of support available to them.

Comments are open for information about resources for students (and faculty) whose immigration status makes them vulnerable to the current political persecution.  Submit the information only once, it may take awhile to appear.   Information about resources available outside New York City are also welcome, since this persecution will spread.

UPDATE:  Many law schools have "immigration clinics" in which law students, under the supervision of licensed attorneys (usually clinical law faculty at the school) provide free legal advice about immigration matters.  My guess is many such clinics are overwhelmed right now, but those seeking immigration law advice and support should call those clinics.  In the New York area, there are many law schools, many of which (I haven't checked all of them) have immigration clinics:  Columbia, NYU, Fordham, Cardozo/Yeshiva University, New York Law School, Brooklyn Law School, Rutgers-Newark, St. John's, Hofstra, Pace.

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16 responses to “What rights do immigrants have under the Constitution and what resources are available to help faculty and students here on visas and green cards”

  1. Grant

    Hi Brian, thank you for posting this. I have a similar question with respect to noncitizen faculty members. I wonder how the potential lack of First Amendment rights might affect academic freedom. More specifically, for example, does this mean that a noncitizen faculty member should be cautious about what they write and teaching in the academic environment, especially on topics in political philosophy, critical theory, cultural studies, etc.? Is there a legal foundation for university legal teams to defend such a professor, in case what they write/say is held against them with respect to their immigration status? Are university administrations willing to do this?

    Reply
  2. Orin Ed DeNiro

    Prof. Leiter wrote in his March 21, 2025, post, "Columbia University caves to Trump's highway robbery," "Columbia decided to throw academic freedom under the bus today for its biological sciences, so the world should know it's not a university, but a medical school and life sciences school with dispensable appendages."

    So, Grant, if you're at a university that depends on federal grants so it can dip its beak into that 50 percent overhead in order to keep the rest of the operation solvent, you "should know it's not a university, but a medical school and life sciences school with dispensable appendages," and if you're teaching political philosophy, critical theory, cultural studies, etc., you're in one of those dispensable appendages. While there may be a legal foundation for university legal teams to defend such a professor, the answer to your question "Are university administrations willing to do this?" is going to be no.

    BL COMMENT: This may be correct, although it remains to be seen whether all universities are as craven as Columbia has been.

    Reply
  3. Concerned

    Not information per se, but an urge (from an international faculty member). the key quote from the NYT is this:

    "This approach leaves immigrants with no practical free speech rights, Nadine Strossen, former president of the A.C.L.U., told me. The First Amendment allows us to speak freely without fear of legal retribution. But if an immigrant’s political advocacy gets him deported, he does have to worry about retribution — and may choose not to speak at all."

    at least as the dust settles, I think this does imply two things: first, if you are a non-citizen of any kind in the US, I'd stop all forms of non-anonymous political participation, esp. anything Palestine-related (posting things, attending protests, writing to congress reps etc). the marginal juice of your participation is not worth the squeeze. Second, to our citizen colleagues and friends – if you are watching this and, even if you do not agree with pro-Palestinian views, you should be very worried and doing political advocacy (posting things, attending protests, writing to congress reps) that might otherwise strike you as normally supererogatory – these things have now become, I would urge, obligatory and necessary.

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  4. Anonymous

    “ colleagues on visas are being disappeared” — can anyone provide more info on this, maybe by the reader who wrote, publicly available or not? I’m a student visa holder, and although I don’t think I’d be targeted for now (no public involvement in anything political and am not at Columbia), this sentence has me extremely worried.

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  5. David Zimmerman

    An informative article about the ridiculous pretexts ICE is using to round up legal residents of the US and ship them off to the gulag in El Salvador:

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/03/immigration-trump-news-mass-deportations-tren-de-aragua.html

    Reply
  6. David Wallace

    I think it’s worth stressing the “may” in Brian’s comment that (noncitizen) immigrants “may not have real First Amendment rights”. The NYT article makes clear that this is not settled law, and the fact that the government has reformulated its case for deporting Mahmoud Khalil to rest on (however prefectural) non-speech grounds at least suggests that they don’t actively want a test case ruling on the issue from the Supreme Court.

    (Of course it’s entirely understandable for a noncitizen not to want to become that test case!)

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  7. David Wallace

    Sorry, autocorrect fail: prefectural -> pretextual.

    Reply
  8. Permanent resident

    I teach at a state institution in the Southeast. My wife and I have been permanent residents since 2020. Because we intend to start the citizenship application process later this year I am now wary of posting even innocuous content online that could be interpreted as ruffling the wrong political feathers. We’re also worried about traveling to Europe and then back to the US. Are we paranoid?

    Reply
  9. John Pillette

    I have to disagree with David Wallace, I’m afraid. We are now living in the bizarro world of our post-liberal order, and we must all adjust our thinking. The Khalil case is indeed a test case, but it’s not the sort of test case that we are all used to. I submit that the “test” here will be, “let’s just see what outrageousness we may get away with”.

    The deportation statute cited (8 USC s237(a)(4)(C)(i)) gives the Sec’y of State broad discretion to deport an “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

    This hurdle is no problem, given the “potential” language. But there is an exception to this (the First Amendment), and then there’s an exception to the exception, so that “the Secretary of State [has to] personally determine[] that the alien … would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” 8 USC s1182 (a)(C)(iii). So Rubio has to show a COMPELLING foreign policy interest.

    Now I’m pretty sure I could come up with an arguably-compelling foreign policy interest in an afternoon. The Administration has had months, and their “compelling” interest seems to be “combatting antisemitism around the globe”. This doesn't strike me as very compelling, and given that there were large numbers of citizens saying the same things (or worse) as as Khalil, the "compromise" prong also seems weak.

    So as a test case (of the non-bizarro-world kind) it seems weak TO ME; but my thinking (in legal matters anyway) has been formed by my liberal prejudices. Maybe the Steven Millers in the Administration think it's not.

    On the positive side, f this case is anything to go by, I suspect that we may all be “saved” (not quite the word) by the incompetence of the lawyering that gets deployed over the next 4 years. I just hope that Roberts, Gorsuch, et al. have enough self respect to not roll over for this kind of shit.

    W/r/t Permanent Resident’s concerns, “paranoia” is an unjustified fear of persecution, and what we have here is the reasonable and prudent expectation thereof. Were I you I would avoid all unnecessary encounters with federal officialdom, and given what I understand is the general climate in the South, I would avoid state and local officialdom as well on the assumption that they are all agents of the RuStaPo (that’s “Little” Marco Rubio’s Secret State Police).

    No, I am not kidding … until we know just how many state agencies have been deputized into this scheme, I would assume that any state run by Republicans has bought into it fully.

    That said, the end of our civilization is a fascinating subject for a lawyer who lives in the (so far) safe enclave of Berkeley, California. As another comment notes, there are some good old fashioned contract issues mixed in here with the out-and-out fascism and I’d be interested in talking to students and faculty at Cal or elsewhere to get a better picture of what’s going on. My contact info may be accessed through the Cal Bar website.

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  10. s. wallerstein

    Permanent resident,

    Not a lawyer nor even a U.S. resident, but I have some life experience with dictatorships.

    Not a good time to apply for citizenship. Why call attention to yourself? Trump and his gang hate the kind of people who read this blog. They act out of hatred and resentment, without any clear criteria. Keep a low profile.

    Maybe not a great time to travel to Europe either.

    BL COMMENT: Although this is the most widely read philosophy-related blog in the world, that is compatible with no Trumpistas ever reading it!

    Reply
  11. Permanent resident

    Why? Precisely to make it harder for them to kick me out, to be able to vote the idiots out of office, to earn some more constitutional rights, and finally because my two kids are natural-born citizens and, for now at least, we don’t see ourselves moving back to Europe. But all of these are only pro tanto reasons and I could be persuaded that now is not the best time to apply—I might be increasing risk here by trying to reduce it elsewhere.

    I imagine my situation generalizes to many other green card holders. I’d be curious to hear if others have thought of delaying the naturalization process in light of the recent developments.

    Reply
  12. John Pillette

    I now realize that I was making a crass assumption in my previous comment. Permanent Resident has now called attention to two additional relevant criteria, viz., race and country of origin. Simply put, if your country of origin is not a “shithole”, as Trump would have it (or as polite liberals have learned to say, the “Global South”) and you are a paleface into the bargain, I suspect that you have less to worry about.

    In fact, I suspect that you probably have nothing at all to worry about, given Trump’s stated preference for more immigration from places “like Norway“. Likewise, if you are European and (importantly) you look that way, I would not expect any trouble from state authorities in places like Florida. All of which is to say that I think Permanent Resident’s situation does NOT generalize to “many” other green card holders, as many of them are from disfavored (shall we say, “more colorful”?) countries of origin. Afrikaners are the exception to this rule, for obvious reasons.

    Based on its previous public statements, I expect that this Administration will be employing racist criteria in determining who stays and who goes … but this raises the further question of whether the historical distinction between the right kind of European (e.g., Norwegian) and the wrong kind will be in force this time around. I suspect not.

    It’s worth noting that w/r/t Stephen Miller (the Himmler-Cohn “collab” reportedly in charge of immigration policy) his people were very much the wrong kind of European. Maybe episodes like this will finally convince everyone that Freudian theory deserves rehabilitation?

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  13. Matt Lister

    I'd second the idea that law school immigration clinics can be a good resource, but also that they are likely highly stressed now.

    I hesitate to say much about the law, because statements about the law typically assume that those charged with enforcing it will, at least mostly, follow the law. We have more than a bit of reason think that, in the US now, that may often not be the case. So, no one should put that much faith in what the law says. That warning aside, it's worth considering that, in general, immigrants (and to a degree even citizens) have significantly fewer rights when "at the border" than when inside the country. The US (like most other states) consistantly maintains the right to set entry procedures, and a person "seeking admission" has very few rights indeed. A very large degree of discretion is given to Customs and Border Patrol officers to determin if a person seeking admission posses a security risk or is likely to violate the terms of their visa. See 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(A)(i). These decisions are typically subject to little or no review. The "best" outcome in the case of a decision to not grant admission is usually to withdraw the request for admission and voluntarily depart, though even the right to do this is discretionary. If someone is found ineligible for admission, is not granted voluntary departure, and is removed, even under these minimal procedures, they are ineligible for a visa for a minimum of 5 years. See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(A)(i). These extremely limited procedural rights for someone seeking admission have not been found to be a violation of the due process clause. As the Supreme Court put the matter in an (in)famous case, "“Whatever the procedure authorized by Congress is, it is due process as far as an alien denied entry is concerned.” U.S. ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537, 544 (1950).

    Things are somewhat better for lawful permanent residents ("Greencard holders"), who, when coming to the US, are at least officially not "seeking admission" in most cases. There are exceptions to this claim, but in most cases, if the LPR has not been outside of the country for more than 180 days, and hasn't committed certain crimes, they will not be (or should not be) seen as "seeking admission", so the harsh standards above are not supposed to apply to them. But, this doesn't mean that an LPR returning to the US might not be detained, only that they are not (should not be) subject to a decision about inadmissability at the whim of a customs and border patrol officer without much chance for review. And, as we've seen, there's good reason to think the Trump administration isn't going to let laws it doesn't like stand in the way. Still, LPRs are typically much safer when coming to the US than other non-citizens.

    The upshot of this is that if you are in the US, and are a non-citizen and especialy if you are not a LPR, you should take care in deciding to leave and return to the US. That is when you will be most vulnerable. Most people will be fine. But, you don't want to be an exception, and if you think you have reason to worry, it can make sense to not take the extra risk that comes from being at the border. Staying in the country will be safer.

    For what it's worth, I would personally almost always advise LPRs who are eligible for citizenship to apply for it. Having it is the best protection, and has few downsides.

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  14. John Pillette

    I have some more advice that may be helpful. This stems from a pro bono 9th Circuit appeal I did some years back (against the Obama Department of “Justice”, for what that’s worth). This case involved a hapless charwoman from Central America picked up in Los Angeles for some minor infraction or other … something along the lines of jaywalking.

    My first piece of advice is, this may look like an “immigration case” but it’s not really. Immigration cases almost always involve undocumented casual workers, and different statutory provisions. Immigration law clinics deal with those kinds of cases. Kahlil’s case is quite different—it is unprecedented in the modern era, more or less. As a number of commentators have pointed out, the closest cases date from the 1950’s and of course none of those lawyers are still around. So there are no available experts. Time for lawyers to hit the library!

    My second piece of advice is be proactive. My client of course couldn’t afford a lawyer and when she needed one she consulted the nearest East L.A. billboard for a recommendation. This hack thereupon had her say exactly all of the wrong things. It would have been relatively easy matter for her to have presented her facts correctly—that is to say, in the most favorable possible light. Had her counsel done that, she would have had a chance. You don’t want your first competent counsel to come in at the appellate level.

    So my third piece of advice is to get your story straight. “Facts” are seldom one-sided, and can often be explained away, but only if you know about them before hand. I recommend reviewing all of your social media, because our libertarian Silicon Valley pals already have. (I await Wired Magazine’s spin on how this will make the world a better place.)

    My last piece of advice is that the universities should really be shouldering the burden of litigation with this. They need to line up competent counsel and they need to cooperate with each other to minimize duplication of effort. I would hope and expect that university corporate counsel has already begun with this … but after hearing about Columbia I’m not so sure.

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  15. Thomas

    Texas Tech has officially recommended "postponing any personal or business travel outside of the United States for the time being" for faculty on visas. Are other universities making similar recommendations?

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  16. John Pillette

    Can anyone out there give any kind of an update on whether universities are taking ANY legal steps toward protecting their international scholars and faculty?

    There is now a petition circulating that implies the answer to this is “no”—b/c otherwise why demand that they “Provide full legal representation for all illegally detained or targeted international students”? 

    Granted, I didn’t go to an Ivy League school for my BA, and I got my JD from a mere state school, so maybe that’s why I’m not exactly shocked by just how quickly these schools have rolled over. As Bart Simpson might say, they “folded quicker than Superman on laundry day.”

    But it should be an eye-opener, given that the Ivy League (along with the white-shoe legal world) has been presented, for as long as I can remember, by the NYT and the NYRB and The New Yorker, as a bastion of brave right-thinking that will serve as a bulwark against fascism.

    I won’t be so gauche as to say, “I told you so”, but …

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