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'Confirming Everything We Knew Already': Docs Show Trump Admin Targeted Gaza Activists for Their Opinions
Unsealed internal documents affirmed that the administration arrested and sought to deport pro-Palestine activists "solely on protected expression," as one rights group put it.
Jan 23, 2026
A federal judge on Thursday unsealed documents showing that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally approved the deportation of university students after receiving memos highlighting their involvement in constitutionally protected campus protests against Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Massachusetts-based Senior Judge William G. Young—an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan—unsealed 105 pages of documents he initially kept under wraps because they contained details regarding federal investigations. Young granted a request by media outlets including the New York Times to unseal the files as a matter of public interest.
Last year, Young ruled that the Trump administration broke the law by targeting pro-Palestine student activists in a bid to “unconstitutionally... chill freedom of speech.”
The unsealed documents include Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos recommending that five student activists who were legally in the United States—Yunseo Chung, Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, Badar Khan Suri, and Rümeysa Öztürk—be deported, despite there being no evidence of wrongdoing.
"There are few things more un-American than masked agents throwing dissenters in the back of a van because the government doesn’t like what they have to say," Conor Fitzpatrick, supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)—which sued the administration over the unconstitutionality of its efforts—said Friday in a statement.
"But these documents prove that it was the students’ opinions alone, and not any criminal activity, that led to handcuffs and deportation proceedings," Fitzpatrick added. "The First Amendment means the government cannot punish speakers for their opinions, but that is exactly what the government is doing."
As the Times reported Friday:
The documents indicate that in nearly all instances, the arrests of the students were recommended based on their involvement in campus protests and public writings, activities that the Trump administration routinely equated to antisemitic hate speech and support for terrorist organizations. They also show that officials privately anticipated the possibility that the deportations might not hold up in court because much of the conduct highlighted could be seen as protected speech.
“Given the potential that a court may consider his actions inextricably tied to speech protected under the First Amendment, it is likely that courts will scrutinize the basis for this determination,” stated one memo on Madhawi, a Columbia University student and permanent US resident.
In another document, Trump administration officials admitted there were no grounds for deporting the students, but noted the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to US foreign policy interests.
Rubio cited the law to target pro-Palestine students for deportation, a stance that was rebuked in a June 2025 ruling from US District Judge Michael Farbiarz, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, who found that Khalil's "career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled" by the Trump administration's actions.
In May 2025, US District Judge William Sessions III—who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton—ordered the release of Öztürk. The Turkish PhD student at Tufts University was illegally snatched off a Massachusetts street in March 2025 and taken to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lockup in Louisiana after she published an opinion piece in a student newspaper advocating divestment from apartheid Israel.
"There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed,” Sessions wrote in his ruling.
One of the newly unsealed State Department documents states that DHS and ICE have "not provided any evidence showing that Öztürk has engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally."
Fitzpatrick stressed that "this can't happen in a free society."
"It can’t happen in a free America," he added. "We’ll continue to fight this egregious violation of the Constitution every step of the way."
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'Stunning Abdication of Basic Human Decency': Trump Ripped for Expanding Global Gag Rule
"President Trump and his anti-abortion administration would rather let people starve to death in the wake of famine and war than let anyone in the world get an abortion—or even receive information about it."
Jan 23, 2026
As US Vice President JD Vance on Friday addressed anti-abortion activists at the March for Life, public health and reproductive rights advocates decried the Trump administration's expansion of the Mexico City Policy, which critics call the global gag rule.
Since the Reagan administration, Democrats have repealed and Republicans have reimposed the policy, which bans nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion from receiving federal funding. While President Donald Trump reinstated it as expected after returning to office last year, multiple media outlets revealed the expansion plans on Thursday.
A spokesperson confirmed to NBC News on Friday that the US Department of State will release three final rules expanding the foreign assistance prohibition to include "gender ideology," and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), or what the administration is calling "discriminatory equity ideology," in line with various other Trump policies.
"President Trump and his anti-abortion administration would rather let people starve to death in the wake of famine and war than let anyone in the world get an abortion—or even receive information about it," Rachana Desai Martin, chief US program officer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a Friday statement.
"People are already dying because of this administration's slashing of foreign assistance," she noted. "Now, they're making it harder for doctors and aid workers to provide food, water, and lifesaving medical care. This isn't about saving lives—it's a stunning abdication of basic human decency."
Guttmacher Institute director of federal policy Amy Friedrich-Karnik similarly called out not only the new "supercharged global gag rule" but also the second Trump administration's "unprecedented actions like the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and rescission of US foreign assistance for family planning services around the world."
"Guttmacher research estimates that almost 50 million women and girls have already been denied contraceptive care in low- and middle-income countries due to these draconian actions," she explained. "This new radical policy threatens to aggravate the cumulative harms of earlier administration actions, undermining decades of bipartisan investment in global health and gender equality, and stripping resources from the world's most vulnerable populations, including LGBTQ+ communities around the world."
Amnesty International's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, Erika Guevara-Rosas, blasted the expansion as "an assault on human rights" that will be "disastrous and deadly."
"It strangles healthcare systems, censors information, and violates the rights to health, information, and free expression," she stressed. "It forces frontline providers and many struggling organizations that depend on US funding into an impossible choice: limit essential healthcare for the most vulnerable populations or shut their doors."
"Doubling down on this policy is cruel, reckless, and ideologically driven," she continued. "Expanding it to international and US-based organizations will impact the poorest and marginalized first and hardest, denying people the chance to live full, healthy, autonomous lives where they are able to access rights and services. It is further proof of this US administration's blatant disregard for international law, universal rights, and the rules-based international order."
Dr. Anu Kumar, president and CEO of Ipas, which works to increase access to abortion and contraception around the world, declared that "this radically expanded global gag rule is nothing short of a regressive, harmful policy that puts the United States even further out of step with our global counterparts."
"Bullying individual countries' governments into complying with anti-rights and extremist ideology held by the current US administration is despicable and unacceptable," Kumar asserted. "It will wreak havoc on global efforts to improve health, uphold human rights, and achieve gender equality."
The broadening of the global gag rule comes as survivors and US lawmakers continue to fight for the release of files from the federal trafficking investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a former friend of Trump. Mina Barling, the International Planned Parenthood Federation's global director of external relations, said that "in an age of Epstein scandals and hocus-pocus designed to undermine science and medicine, the Trump administration has read the room."
"He knows his obsession with women's bodies is viewed cynically, so he has utilized the man-made panic funded by the fossil fuel industry to shift the focus of his policy against trans people," Barling said of the president. "The global gag rule is hate-bait designed to keep his donors happy and export more division to countries reliant on US aid, in the absence of economic justice."
"We stand in solidarity with women and trans people in all their diversity," she added. "We demand debt relief, and we support national sovereignty. We want to see a new global health architecture that is less susceptible to the whims of American politicians."
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'Groundbreaking': Michigan Sues Big Oil 'Cartel' for Conspiracy to Block Renewable Energy
The case accuses "four of the largest energy companies in the world" of conspiring "to forestall meaningful competition from renewable energy and maintain their dominance in the energy market."
Jan 23, 2026
While several US states and municipalities have sued fossil fuel companies by citing consumer protection and public nuisance laws, Michigan on Friday launched an antitrust lawsuit against four industry giants and their trade association, accusing them of operating as a "cartel" to impede a transition to clean power and transportation.
Twenty months after state Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that she was seeking proposals from lawyers and firms "to pursue litigation related to the climate change impacts caused by the fossil fuel industry," the Democrat sued BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan.
"Michigan is facing an energy affordability crisis as our home energy costs skyrocket, and consumers are left without affordable options for transportation. Whether you own a home, a small business, or run a large corporation, rising energy and transportation costs harm everyone," Nessel said in a statement.
"These out-of-control costs are not the result of natural economic inflation, but due to the greed of these corporations who prioritized their own profit and marketplace dominance over competition and consumer savings," she continued.
As the complaint says: "Defendants are four of the largest energy companies in the world and their industry's largest trade association. The fossil fuel defendants produce fossil fuels and have at times invested in clean energy products and related technologies, such as solar power and batteries, that could provide energy to power buildings, infrastructure, and cars as an alternative to fossil fuels."
"But for decades, defendants have conspired with each other to forestall meaningful competition from renewable energy and maintain their dominance in the energy market," the filing continues. "They have done so as a cartel, agreeing to reduce the production and distribution of electricity from renewable sources and to restrain the emergence of electric vehicles (EV) and renewable primary energy technologies in the United States."
"To achieve this end," the document details, "they have abandoned renewable energy projects, used patent litigation to hinder rivals, suppressed information concerning the hidden costs of fossil fuels and viability of alternatives, infiltrated and knowingly misdirected information-producing institutions, surveilled and intimidated watchdogs and public officials, and used trade associations to coordinate market-wide efforts to divert capital expenditures away from renewable energy—all to further one of the most successful antitrust conspiracies in United States history."
Lumping in this case with others previously filed against fossil fuel companies and API, Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel for the trade group, said in a statement to the Detroit News that "these baseless lawsuits are a coordinated campaign against an industry that powers everyday life, drives America's economy, and is actively reducing emissions."
While Shell declined to comment to Reuters, and BP and Exxon did not respond, a lawyer for Chevron, Theodore Boutrous Jr., similarly called the suit "baseless as demonstrated by multiple related court dismissals," and told the news agency that it "ignores the fact that Michigan is highly dependent on oil and gas to support the state's automakers and workers."
According to Nessel's complaint: "In the world that would have existed but for defendants' conspiracy, EVs would not be a fringe technology or a luxury alternative. They would be a common sight in every neighborhood—rolling off assembly lines in Flint, parked in driveways in Dearborn, charging outside grocery stores in Grand Rapids, and running quietly down Woodward Avenue."
"Reliable and fast chargers would be integrated into new development and ubiquitous at highway rest stops and converted gas stations," it states. "A family needing a car would have dozens of affordable electric options, and the renewable energy needed to power EVs efficiently would be supplied at scale—integrated into the grid or delivered through a dedicated 100% renewable network—spurred by public and private investment responding to competitive market signals."
"Michiganders would also have additional, renewable energy options for providing primary energy to their homes and businesses, such as solar, wind, hydropower, and geothermal; these options would improve reliability, reduce costs to Michiganders, and reduce reliance on natural gas, fuel oil, and propane," the document adds.
Tim Minotas, legislative and political director for Sierra Club Michigan, welcomed the filing. He said in a statement that "at a time when the federal government is rolling back critical environmental protections and families are facing an energy affordability crisis, we commend Attorney General Nessel for standing up for Michiganders and holding major fossil fuel companies accountable."
"In Michigan, these companies have used their outsized political influence to preserve the status quo and pave the way for a wave of energy-intensive data center projects across the state, even as renewable energy remains the cheapest source of new power and what Michiganders deserve," he noted. "For far too long, fossil fuel and utility companies have polluted Michigan's air, water, and land while driving up energy costs for families. This action sends a clear message: Michigan families and communities must come before corporate profits."
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, also celebrated the development: "Michigan's groundbreaking case reveals how the Big Oil cartel conspired to deny Americans cleaner and cheaper energy choices and make life less affordable by keeping consumers hooked on their dirty fossil fuel products. Eleven states and dozens of municipalities are now fighting to put Big Oil companies on trial for their climate lies and make them pay for the harm they've caused."
"Big Oil is desperate to keep the evidence of their climate lies from juries in cases like Michigan's, and that's why the fossil fuel industry is now lobbying Congress for a get-out-of-jail-free card," Wiles added, pointing to a push for a so-called liability shield. "Congress must protect the right of the people of Michigan and every state to hold Big Oil accountable for the harm their climate lies have caused."
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