The Trump administration believes some noncitizens may not even have first amendment rights. And it’s turning that legal fantasy into a reality by making immigration judges choose between the constitution and their jobs.

Last week, the judge who rejected the deportation of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts doctoral student whose only offense was co-writing an op-ed critical of Israel, was fired after upholding the law. Judge Roopal Patel rejected the administration’s argument that expressing views shared by millions of Americans disturbed by the carnage in Gaza – sometimes including Donald Trump himself – equates to supporting terrorism and antisemitism.

Also let go by the Department of Justice, which hires and fires immigration judges, was Judge Nina Froes. She terminated the removal case against Mohsen Mahdawi over his involvement in campus protests at Columbia. Secretary of state Marco Rubio perplexingly argued, in a memorandum supporting the removal, that Mahdawi’s antiwar activities interfered with the administration’s purported goal of ending the war in Gaza peacefully.

But while Froes and Patel pack their bags, Blake Doughty, an immigration judge in Atlanta, remains on the bench. And his recent opinion ordering the deportation of Ya’akub Vijandre – a Daca recipient, Red Cross-trained first aid responder, activist and photojournalist – may have secured his seat on the bench for the foreseeable future. There’s precedent: the Louisiana immigration judge Jamee Comans was promoted to acting assistant director of the Office of Policy at the Executive Office for Immigration Review months after ordering the pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil removed.

The constitutional cluelessness reflected by Doughty’s order is appalling. In other words, it’s the exact order the Trumps and Stephen Millers of the world likely wish Patel and Froes had written, and it’s the kind of legal analysis they hope to see from judges economically incentivized to deport........

© The Guardian