A Federal Judge Just Kicked Marco Rubio’s Butt in a No-Brainer Decision About Protected Speech

2 min readMarco Rubio, the incredible shrinking secretary of state, discovered over the weekend that federal courts will find your butt to kick no matter how small you’ve rendered yourself in service to the mad king. From Politico:A federal judge on Friday declared that the Trump administration’s efforts to deport noncitizens for political speech run counter to the Constitution’s First and Fifth Amendments, the latest legal rebuke of the White House’s expansive immigration agenda. Northern District of California judge Noël Wise, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, sided with the Stanford Daily, which sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio, arguing that his use of the Immigration and Nationality Act to deport noncitizen students had foreign students refraining from writing opinion pieces critical of the administration.How is this even a question? This was clearly protected speech. The people sharing it were on United States soil, which means they’re covered by the Bill of Rights.“In the United States, freedom of speech belongs to the people,” Wise wrote in her opinion. “It is not the government’s to take.”Hell to the no, it’s not.“Here you can simultaneously hate the content of a person’s speech and love the country that cherishes the freedom to allow it,” Wise wrote. “Zealous protection of our Constitutional right to free speech is a provocative demonstration of our country’s powerful lack of fear.”And the true absurdity of Rubio’s action was the many, if not all, of the deportations involved criticism not of this country, but of the government of Israel. As is customary, the administration took refuge in utter incoherence.A State Department spokesperson, given anonymity to discuss internal thought processes within the agency, told Politico that the U.S. “is under no obligation to admit or suffer the presence of individuals who subvert our laws and deny our citizens their Constitutional rights.” “More broadly, the Department of State is committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process,” the spokesperson said. “A visa is a privilege, not a right.”If it were my job to present this stunning bafflegab for public consumption, I’d probably request anonymity, too. Hell, I’d probably put a paper bag over my head.The ruling comes after the administration’s campaign last year to revoke visas and seek the deportations of foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian movement. Among those subjected to deportation proceedings were Columbia University activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, Tufts University doctoral grad Rümeysa Öztürk, and Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri.The cases became part of a broader legal and political fight over the administration’s efforts to crack down on campus activism they viewed as not aligned with their foreign policy. The administration argued their presence could harm U.S. foreign policy. The students and their lawyers responded by saying they were being punished for constitutionally protected free speech. Hold him closer, tiny dancer. You're all he has left.