'Abhorrent': Reagan judge issues stinging rebuke to DHS over 'unconstitutional' Trump move

President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem in Ochopee, Florida, July 1, 2025 (DHS photo by Tia Dufour/Flickr)

When President Donald Trump and his allies targeted pro-Palestinian activists for deportation, civil libertarians were quick to sound the alarm. Trump, they stressed, had every right to criticize their views, but targeting them for deportation because of those views was anti-First Amendment.

Now, a federal judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Judge William G. Young, is taking the Trump administration to task.

In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, March 11, Young ruled that targeting pro-Palestinian activists for deportation because of their views "was unconstitutional, abhorrent to a society that cherishes free speech."

Young wrote, "As this Court recognizes, the entire theory of this administration is that of a unitary executive with no agency independence where every single employee within the Article II executive dances to the tune of the President…. This conduct must never happen again."

President Reagan first nominated Young, now 85, for the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in September 1984 during his reelection campaign. Reagan enjoyed a landslide victory that year, winning 525 electoral votes and defeating Democratic nominee Walter Mondale by 18 percent in the national popular vote. And Young was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 1985 a few months into Reagan's second term.

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