Politico reports:

A federal judge handling a lawsuit over the deportation of pro-Palestinian activists excoriated top administration officials, including President Donald Trump, for trampling on the First Amendment and for what the judge described as a fearful approach to freedom.

“There was no policy here,” said U.S. District Judge William Young, an 85-year-old Reagan appointee who has been on the federal bench in Boston for 40 years. “What happened here is an unconstitutional conspiracy to pick off certain people.”

During a hearing on the suit Thursday, Young tore into Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for pursuing a targeted deportation campaign that Young said was at odds with the country’s core values.

“I find it breathtaking that I have been compelled on the evidence to find the conduct of such high-level officers of our government — cabinet secretaries — conspired to infringe the First Amendment rights of people with such rights here in the United States,” Young said. “These cabinet secretaries have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”

Young’s comments came as he prepares to issue what he described as a steep sanction against the Trump administration for seeking to “chill” the free speech of pro-Palestinian activists targeted for arrest and removal weeks after Trump took office — including Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madhawi, as well as Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk and Georgetown University academic Badar Khan Suri. [Continue reading…]