Judge orders release of detained international student who says he was targeted for supporting Palestinian human rights

By Gloria Pazmino, Caroll Alvarado, CNN

(CNN) — A federal district court judge in Minnesota ordered the release of a detained international student Monday after finding the Trump administration failed to show it didn’t target him for speaking publicly about Palestine.

Minnesota State University-Mankato student Mohammed Hoque, a Bangladeshi national who entered the United States on a valid F-1 visa in 2021, was arrested by Department of Homeland Security officers outside his home in March, according to court documents.

Officers had followed the student home after class and arrested him – purportedly due to a visa revocation – in front of his parents who were there for a visit, documents show.

Hoque was detained until US District Judge Jerry Blackwell ordered his release this week, saying his arrest matched a pattern of activity by the Trump administration targeting non-citizens who engaged in protest activity against the war in Gaza, raising concerns about First Amendment violations.

“The record contains sufficiently clear evidence of viewpoint-based targeting for (Hoque’s) exercise of protected speech on a matter of public concern,” the judge wrote in his order, adding that the arrest “aligns with the publicly stated executive policy of targeting social media users who express support for Palestinian human rights and criticize violence in Gaza, as Petitioner had done.”

Blackwell added the Department of Justice failed to present any evidence to justify Hoque’s initial arrest and his continued detention.

Hoque, a student of management information systems, has argued in court filings he was targeted for his political speech and not any immigration violations or criminal activity. Attorneys told the court Hoque’s student visa and Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) record were terminated.

CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the judge’s order.

Hoque’s case is among a string of recent student visa cancellations and revocations of statuses from SEVIS that have affected thousands of students across the United States amid a larger Trump administration immigration crackdown. In many instances, students and their attorneys said they believed their statuses were revoked because of minor entanglements with law enforcement like traffic violations or underage drinking.

In calling for Hoque’s visa to be revoked, the State Department cited two previous misdemeanor charges against him – including one misdemeanor assault charge he was never convicted of – and called him a threat to public safety, according to the judge’s order, which notes that the memo does not accurately represent that the student was never arrested, and instead completed a stayed sentence in mid-2024.

Court records show Hoque was convicted of disorderly conduct in 2023 in Minnesota – which the judge said is a crime that “does not appear to support removability.” CNN has reached out to Hoque’s lawyers for more information on the conviction.

Hoque was released on bail Tuesday and has been reunited with his family, according to his attorneys.

“Yesterday, Mohammed Hoque was released on bond,” Teresa Nelson, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union in Minnesota said in a statement. “While we celebrate that Mr. Hoque has been reunited with his family, we are deeply aware that Mr. Hoque should never have been detained in the first place. We know Mr. Hoque can’t recoup the 40 days he spent in custody.”

Reasoning for detaining the student kept changing, judge says

Shortly after his arrest, attorneys for Hoque filed suit against the Trump administration, and a habeas petition seeking to stop his transfer out of the state. Blackwell initially granted their motion for a temporary restraining order, which kept Hoque in detention in Minnesota.

During a bail hearing before an immigration judge last month, Hoque was found not to be a danger to the community despite the government’s charges and ordered to be released. That decision was appealed by the government, which kept him in detention, according to the judge’s order.

In his release order, Blackwell chided the government for changing charges against Hoque, apparently to keep him in custody. The lack of clarity has only supported Hoque’s claims that he was targeted for his speech, not any illegal activity, Blackwell wrote.

The judge said, “the Government cited different reasons at different times for its actions,” first citing “failure to maintain status and foreign policy,” then criminal records.

“The Government also refers to requests and communications without providing the requests or communications themselves,” Blackwell wrote. “In the face of public evidence of a practice of targeting speech, these omissions are glaring and fail to rebut the evidence that the Government was motivated to arrest and detain Petitioner because he had spoken publicly about Palestine.”

Now that Hoque has been released, the lawsuit will move forward along with the immigration proceedings that the Department of Homeland Security has started against him.

It’s not just visa holders that have been targeted by the Trump administration’s crackdown. Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madawi – pro-Palestinian activists at Columbia University – are now fighting deportation after the State Department ordered revocation of their permanent legal resident status, commonly known as a “green card,” and arrested them in March and April, respectively.

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