In March, a group of scholars filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block the government from detaining and deporting students and professors for speaking out about Palestine.

Now, as the case heads to trial in Massachusetts federal court in July, those professors and students worry they may be targeted by immigration officials for speaking out in the courtroom on the witness stand.

But the Trump administration is refusing to reassure them they won’t be subject to retaliation.

As attorneys for the scholars prepared to file a motion to protect their witnesses — many of whom are in the country under green cards or visas — from being detained or deported for testifying during trial, government attorneys refused to agree to such safeguards, according to recent legal filings in the case.

In their refusal, government attorneys said that their clients, which include the Department of Homeland Security as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “did not want to be bound by an agreement preventing them from taking action against individuals whose identities they did not know yet,” the filings said.

When the scholars’ attorneys clarified that the motion would only protect witnesses from being targeted for participating in the case, attorneys for DHS and ICE doubled down in their opposition to the protection and challenged them to instead have the judge decide whether to grant the order.

“Defendants’ counsel reiterated that the agencies were ‘not comfortable’ with such a proposal,” the scholars’........

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