Five congressional Democrats visited two graduate students, Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, who are facing deportation by the Trump administration. The lawmakers' trip was an effort to bring attention to the cases of the students, who have become high-profile examples of the administration's efforts to suppress pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses. The students' lawyers argue that their detentions violate their rights to free speech. The Democrats also criticized the government for sending the students to facilities in Louisiana, which has a conservative appeals court, suggesting that it was done to secure a more favorable hearing for their deportation proceedings.