I’m guessing that this case could go either way, if appealed.

If you’re a citizen, there are some strong restrictions on what the government can do.

But there have been examples where the Executive Branch is accorded a great deal of leeway in being able to determine whether non-citizens may enter the country, including using criteria that would not be permissible if applied to citizens. IIRC from past reading, there is unresolved territory in case law.

kagis for an example

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/408/753/

Kleindienst v. Mandel

This action was brought to compel the Attorney General to grant a temporary nonimmigrant visa to a Belgian journalist and Marxian theoretician whom the American plaintiff appellees had invited to participate in academic conferences and discussions in this country. The alien had been found ineligible for admission under §§ 212(a)(28)(D) and (G)(v) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, barring those who advocate or publish “the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism.” The Attorney General had declined to waive ineligibility as he has the power to do under § 212(d) of the Act, basing his decision on unscheduled activities engaged in by the alien on a previous visit to the United States, when a waiver was granted. A three-judge District Court, although holding that the alien had no personal entry right, concluded that citizens of this country had a First Amendment right to have him enter and to hear him, and enjoined enforcement of § 212 as to this alien.

Held: In the exercise of Congress’ plenary power to exclude aliens or prescribe the conditions for their entry into this country, Congress in § 212(a)(28) of the Act has delegated conditional exercise of this power to the Executive Branch. When, as in this case, the Attorney General decides for a legitimate and bona fide reason not to waive the statutory exclusion of an alien, courts will not look behind his decision or weigh it against the First Amendment interests of those who would personally communicate with the alien. Pp. 408 U. S. 761-770.

So, in that case, the guy was barred from entry to the US because he had been an advocate of world communism. However, the government could not create laws against citizens doing so, because that would violate their First Amendment rights.

kagis

Ah, but this says that while the government does have a lot of leeway as to permitting entry, courts have, in the past, found a distinction between permitting entry initially and whether-or-not a non-citizen resident may be deported:

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/aliens/

Supreme Court precedents hold that aliens are entitled to lesser First Amendment protections while seeking to enter the United States, because an alien has no right to enter the country, as per United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy (1950).

During the McCarthy Era, in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580 (1952), the U.S. allowed the deportation of a legal resident alien who was a member of the Communist Party, but Justice William O. Douglas persuasively argued in dissent that “An alien, who is assimilated in our society, is treated as a citizen so far as his property and his liberty are concerned.”

In matters involving alien exclusion and naturalization, Congress has historically been permitted broad regulatory powers, so the government has been able to use the political viewpoints of aliens against them where content-based distinctions against citizens would be impermissible. Some examples:

• Exclusion of a British anarchist was at issue in Turner v. Williams (1904);
• Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1952), cited above, concerned deportation of communists; and
• Kleindienst v. Mandel (1972) examined denial of a travel visa to a Marxist.

Legal aliens enjoy First Amendment rights

Once situated lawfully in the United States, aliens enjoy First Amendment rights.

As Justice Francis W. Murphy described the law in his concurrence in Bridges v. Wixon (1945), “the Bill of Rights is a futile authority for the alien seeking admission for the first time to these shores. But once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders.”

In that case, the Court reversed the deportation of labor activist Harry Bridges, an Australian, because of statements he had made that prosecutors charged indicated “affiliation” with the Communist Party. Writing for the Court, Justice William O. Douglas concluded that “freedom of speech and of the press is accorded aliens residing in this country. . . . [T]he literature published by Harry Bridges, the utterances made by him were entitled to that protection.”

Developments during Trump Administration

The Trump Administration has sought both to restrict U.S. entry of non-citizens who oppose U.S. policies and to expel those within the country who have participated in political protests that the administration disfavors.

In 2025, the administration sought to revoke the student visa and green card of Mahmoud Khalil for his participation in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.

It did so under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the Secretary of State to deport any individual who is “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.” After his arrest, Khalil was moved to a detention center in Louisiana and the government made additional arguments that Khalil obtained his green card without mentioning his employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut. He is now scheduled for a hearing before an immigration judge in New Jersey.

In the meantime, the government has arrested a Tufts University Ph.D. student, Rumeysa Ozturk, whom it has also transported to Louisiana, apparently on the basis that she coauthored an article criticizing the university’s response to the Palestinian crisis. The government has also deported Dr. Rasha Alawieh, who was working at Brown University, on the basis that she had attended the funeral of a Hezbollah leader in Lebanon. In addition, the government has arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national researcher at Georgetown University, alleging that Suri was supporting Hamas propaganda and antisemitism. Suri has challenged this detention in court and is awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge in Texas. Yet another foreign student at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, which was a site of pro-Palestinian protests, has been arrested.

In resolving these cases, courts will likely clarify the scope of existing legislation, whether the power asserted by the Secretary of State violates due process, and the degree to which resident aliens who are legally residing within the United States are protected by the First Amendment and other constitutional guarantees.