A recap of the trial over the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protesters

BOSTON (AP) — The Trump administration's campaign of arresting and deporting college faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations violates their First Amendment rights, lawyers for an association representing university professors argued in federal court.

The lawsuit, filed by several university associations, is one of the first against President Donald Trump and members of his administration to go to trial. U.S. District Judge William Young heard closing arguments Monday in Boston.

He did not say or indicate when or how he would rule. But he had some sharp words when talking about Trump.

“The president is a master of speech and he certainly brilliantly uses his right to free speech," Young told federal lawyers. But whether Trump "recognizes whether other people have any right to free speech is questionable,” he added.

Plaintiffs are asking Young to rule that the policy violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

Over the course of the trial, plaintiffs argued that the crackdown has silenced scholars and targeted more than 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters.

“The goal is to chill speech. The goal is to silence students and scholars who wish to express pro-Palestinian views,” said Alexandra Conlan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

She went on to say that this chilling effect caused by “intimidating and scaring students and scholars" is “exactly what the First Amendment was meant to prevent.”

But federal lawyers and a top State Department official testifying for the government insisted there was no ideological deportation policy as the plaintiffs contend.

John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in Bureau of Consular Affairs, testified that visa revocations were based on longstanding immigration law. Armstrong acknowledged he played a role in the visa revocation of several high-profile activists, including Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, and was shown memos endorsing their removal.

Armstrong also insisted that visa revocations were not based on protected speech and rejected accusations that there was a policy of targeting someone for their ideology.

“It’s silly to suggest there is a policy,” he said.

U.S. lawyer William Kanellis said that out of about 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters investigated by the federal government, only 18 were arrested. He said not only is targeting such protesters not a policy of the U.S. government, he said, it’s “not even a statistical anomaly.”

Out of the 5,000 names reviewed, investigators wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law, Peter Hatch of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations Unit testified. Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.

Among the report subjects was Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.

Another was the Tufts University student Ozturk, who was released in May from six weeks in detention after being arrested on a suburban Boston street. She said she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her school’s response to the war in Gaza.

Hatch said most leads were dropped when investigators could not find ties to protests and the investigations were not inspired by a new policy but rather by existing procedures in place at least since he took the job in 2019.

Patrick Cunningham, an assistant special Agent in charge with Homeland Security investigations in Boston and who was involved in Ozturk’s arrest, said he was only told the Tuft University student was being arrested because her visa was revoked.

But he also acknowledged being provided a memo from the State Department about Ozturk as well as a copy of an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza. He also admitted that he has focused more on immigration cases since Trump’s inauguration, compared to the drugs smuggling and money laundering cases he handled in the past.

During the trial, several green card-holding professors described scaling back activism, public criticism and international travel following Khalil's and Ozturk's arrests.

Nadje Al-Ali, a green card holder from Germany and professor at Brown University, said she canceled a planned research trip and a fellowship to Iraq and Lebanon, fearing that “stamps from those two countries would raise red flags” upon her return. She also declined to participate in anti-Trump protests and abandoned plans to write an article that was to be a feminist critique of Hamas.

“I felt it was too risky,” Al-Ali said.

Kanellis, a U.S. government attorney, said “feelings” and “anxiety” about possible deportation do not equate to imminent harm from a legal standpoint, which he argued plaintiffs failed to establish in their arguments.

FILE - Tufts University student from Turkey, Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested by immigration agents while walking along a street in a Boston suburb, talks to reporters on arriving back in Boston, May 10, 2025, a day after she was released from a Louisiana immigration detention center on the orders of a federal judge. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi, File)

People show their support for a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy of targeting students for deportation who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on Monday, July 7, 2025, at the federal courthouse in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Casey)

People show their support for a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy of targeting students for deportation who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on Monday, July 7, 2025, at the federal courthouse in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Casey)

Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, speaks about a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration over deporting students and faculty who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on Monday, July 7, 2025, at the federal courthouse in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Casey)

People show their support for a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy of targeting students for deportation who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on Monday, July 7, 2025, at the federal courthouse in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Casey)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The sound of construction roared over the most memed metro station in Mexico City as workers hammered at marble floors under a chandelier and rows of lamps reminiscent of a scene from “Harry Potter” or “Titanic,” racing to finish ahead of the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony Thursday.

Mexicans milling through the busy Hidalgo metro station pointed and laughed, occasionally snapping pictures of the face-lift that has become the subject of a cascade of internet memes.

The cosmetic makeover that authorities have attempted to give the capital as visitors arrive from around the globe also has become a symbol of criticisms that the government is prioritizing its superficial appearance for World Cup fans over fixing critical structural issues that have long plagued the city.

“People make fun of it because it's a failed aesthetic, it doesn't make a lot of sense,” said Silvia Escamilla, 28, who was hustling to work among a crowd of Mexican commuters. “All these renovations are like putting makeup on the city, because the infrastructure they could actually invest in just isn’t there.”

For weeks, Mexico City workers have plastered walls and metro cars with cartoon axolotls, the mole salamander that has become a city mascot. They also have painted bridges purple and planted Mexican marigold flowers typical of Day of the Dead celebrations in November.

The 22 million residents of the sprawling capital, known as Chilangos, have jokingly referred to the renovations as the city's “axolotlization.” They have posted videos of flooded underpasses next to freshly painted murals of axolotls and crumbling stairs and potholes painted bright purple.

Hidalgo station, in the heart of the downtown, has perhaps become the subject of more memes than anywhere else in the city.

When city workers installed the chandelier near the metro entrance and rows of Victorian wall lamps in May, social media users were quick to joke that authorities were trying to make the gritty metro system look like it was in a European city.

Residents began to show up at the station in elegant dresses in videos layered over Mozart music. One social media influencer descended the marble stairs dressed as the Beast from the classic Disney cartoon “Beauty and the Beast.” Another arrived as Napoleon Bonaparte in a white wig and French military uniform.

“May you have an elegant metro connection,” one social media influencer said as he strolled through throngs of commuters dressed in a tuxedo and top hat. Another filmed herself selling pink dresses aboard one of the metro trains, yelling to passengers that the items matched the “etiquette” of Metro Hidalgo.

Many more posed next to marble floors and walls torn up by construction ahead of the soccer tournament being hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The crush of jokes amused Mexicans for weeks, but also cut to the core of a deeper problem in the city, said Aldo Solano Rojas, an art historian in Mexico City who has criticized the remodel.

Failures to prioritize issues like the metro's crumbling infrastructure and holes in the major municipal roadways show the government “doesn't understand the real needs of the city,” he said.

“State presence, at its best, is reflected in well-maintained sidewalks and adequate transportation infrastructure that doesn't collapse every day,” Solano Rojas said. “It's not reflected in frivolous, superficial axolotl murals while the streets are flooding.”

The criticisms come in the midst of wider social unrest in Mexico City as the country's teachers union, families of Mexico's 130,000 missing people and a range of other social movements use the proximity to the event to pressure authorities.

The government also has faced accusations of displacing sex workers and street vendors in an effort to clean up the streets. Despite the tensions, city workers on Wednesday were still racing to complete construction ahead of the opening ceremony and first match.

Mirna Baranco looked fondly on the renovations, but the 46-year-old laughed at the chandelier over Hidalgo construction workers. She nudged her boyfriend and pointed.

“I've already seen it all over the place on Facebook, but not in real life,” she said.

Baranco understood the criticisms, but said she didn't think it was necessarily a bad thing that authorities were making changes to be more attractive to international visitors. The World Cup has helped push local governments to make needed renovations, even if some look a little out of place, she said.

The changes show that “Mexico isn't just how others stereotype us, as a country with narcos,” Baranco said. “Mexico has a lot to give the world.”

A woman puts on makeup at the subway in Mexico City, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A dancer holds a replica of the World Cup trophy as soccer fans stand along Reforma Avenue in Mexico City, Saturday, June 6, 2026 ahead of the FIFA World Cup. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

People walk through a subway station that has new lighting, part of preparations for hosting the World Cup soccer tournament in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

People walk through a subway station that has new lighting, part of preparations for hosting the World Cup soccer tournament in Mexico City, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)