Thought this was worth inclusion in the thread…
A Reagan-appointed judge just TORCHED Donald Trump’s unconstitutional assault on free speech – as well his ICE abuses –in one of the most scathing legal rulings we’ve EVER seen.
Trump got his authoritarian ambitions shredded — not by a liberal firebrand, not by a “radical left” activist judge, but by a Reagan-appointed federal judge who knows the Constitution better than Trump ever will.
U.S. District Judge William Young didn’t just rule against Trump’s plan to deport non-citizen students for protesting Israeli actions in Gaza — he obliterated it. And he did it in a 161-page opinion that reads like a love letter to the Constitution — and a warning siren to a country sleepwalking toward authoritarianism.
And Judge Young made it personal right out of the gate. He attached a threatening anonymous postcard someone had sent him:
“TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS…WHAT DO YOU HAVE?”
His reply? Pure constitutional poetry:
“Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People … have our magnificent Constitution.”
That’s how you open a legal ruling. With spine. With defiance. With a reminder that the Constitution doesn’t belong to Trump — it belongs to We The People.
From there, Judge Young reprinted the actual text of the First Amendment — apparently deciding that if Trump, Kristi Noem, and Marco Rubio keep pretending not to understand it, he’d spell it out for them like children: “Congress shall make NO LAW… prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech.”
And then he lowered the boom:
Calling this case “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court,” Judge Young settled the matter once and for all:
“The Court answers the Constitutional question [of whether non-citizens have First Amendment rights] unequivocally ‘yes, they do.’ ‘No law’ means ‘no law.’ The First Amendment does not draw President Trump’s invidious distinction [between citizens and non-citizens,] and it is not to be found in our history or jurisprudence.”
Translation: Trump’s attempt to strip free speech rights from non-citizens is not only unconstitutional, it’s flat-out un-American.
And Judge Young wasn’t finished. He took direct aim at Trump’s fragile ego and strongman cosplay:
“The President’s palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech.”
Let’s pause here: A Reagan judge just said the former Republican president poses “a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech.” Imagine how far gone you have to be to get that kind of rebuke.
Judge Young then cut deeper:
“I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.”
That’s the Trump strategy in a nutshell: keep people divided, distracted, and convinced the Constitution is somebody else’s problem — right until it’s too late.
And then came one of the most searing passages we’ve ever read from the federal bench, this time about Trump’s ICE shock troops:
“ICE goes masked for a single reason — to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard them as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks. Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor — and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history, we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.”
Read that again. A federal judge just compared Trump’s ICE to the Ku Klux Klan. And he’s right. No democracy tolerates a “masked secret police” — except the one Trump is trying to build.
Judge Young made plain that Trump has repeatedly violated the Constitution. But here’s the kicker: thanks to the Supreme Court’s disgraceful ruling granting Trump blanket immunity for his “official acts,” this president-turned-defendant can shrug off accountability for now.
Still, the decision is a thunderclap. It rules for the plaintiffs, reaffirms that the First Amendment protects everyone — citizen or not — and leaves the executive branch scrambling to figure out what “remedies” they’ll face for trying to shred our most fundamental freedom.
Make no mistake: this ruling is more than legal precedent. It’s a moral indictment. It’s a reminder that even after years of Trump’s bullying, gaslighting, and “hollow bragging,” there are still judges who will stand up and say:
The First Amendment is NOT negotiable, no matter WHAT Trump thinks.
