“To President Trump and his Cabinet,” exclaims the keffiyeh-clad pro-Palestinian Columbia student activist whom Mr. Trump is trying to deport, “I am not afraid of you.” That defiance seems to be founded on the backing of a sympathetic federal judge in Vermont, who sprung Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent resident, from detention. Judge Geoffrey Crawford, comparing the political mood to McCarthy’s era, says it is “not our proudest moment.”

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, another federal judge is putting up hurdles in Mr. Trump’s attempt to deport another pro-Palestinian student activist, Mahmoud Khalil, who is a legal resident. An immigration judge in Louisiana had okayed his removal, but Judge Michael Fabiarz finds that more scrutiny is needed as to the case against Mr. Khalil. Taken together the cases could spell tough sledding for Mr. Trump, though they are in their preliminary stages.

These columns sympathize with the administration’s efforts to purge the nation’s campuses of foreign agitators who espouse hateful rhetoric, advocate violence, break other laws, or explicitly support terrorist organizations. “No one’s entitled to a student visa,” Secretary Rubio explains. “If you come here to, like, vandalize a library, take over a campus, and do all kinds of crazy things, you know, we’re going to get rid of these people.”

Mr. Rubio says “when we identify lunatics like these, we take away their student visa.” At the same time, the need to obtain court approval of these removals is shaping up as a hurdle that could delay or thwart the administration’s efforts. The legal snags encountered in the efforts to deport Messrs. Khalil and Mahdawi could be one reason why the administration last week reversed its decision to terminate the visas of some 1,200 students. 

Mr. Mahdawi argues that deporting him is crosswise with the First Amendment and the Trump administration is “targeting him for criticizing Israel and participating in campus protests,” Politico reports. “Me standing here in front of you sends a clear message,” Mr. Mahdawi said outside the courthouse today at Burlington. “We the people will hold the Constitution accountable for the principles that we believe in.”

That high-minded rhetoric is undercut, though, by Mr. Mahdawi’s anti-Israeli agitprop. “To my people in Palestine,” he said, “I feel your pain, I see your suffering; and I see freedom and it is very very soon.” Is Mr. Mahdawi talking out of both sides of his mouth? A homeland security official, Tricia McLaughlin, reminds Judge Crawford that “it is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America.” 

Ms. McLaughlin adds: “When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.” That echoes Mr. Rubio’s concerns in the Khalil case that the foreign student played a role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities” that created “a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.” 

The state secretary, we’ve noted, “appears to have a clear-eyed sense of the stakes involved in allowing foreign activists to run amok on college campuses,” despite liberals’ First-Amendment rhetoric. Mr. Rubio’s finding that Messrs. Khalil and Mahdawi’s presence here has “serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest” could yet be vindicated in the courts, which have only made preliminary rulings.

In those proceedings, logic and the law generally suggest that the applicant to stay in America bears the final burden of justifying eligibility. There are stages of the process where the burden is the government’s to bear. At the end of the day, though, the law still requires that an alien seeking “relief from removal” bears the “burden of establishing that he or she is eligible” for any “benefit or privilege” sought. That burden is part of due process in such cases.

The litigation by Messrs. Khalil and Mahdawi could also fall under a broader case arguing that foreign students wrongly face removal “based solely upon their pro-Palestine or anti-Israel political speech.” That dispute, which a federal judge in Massachusetts said Tuesday can go to trial, could hobble the administration’s ability to proceed with removing hostile campus agitators — and with trimming the sails of activist judges.