NEW YORK — New York Attorney General Letitia James and 18 other AGs Friday threw their support behind professors seeking to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to deport international students.

In a friend of the court brief, the coalition accused the federal government of weaponizing immigration enforcement to crack down on speech President Donald Trump and his allies disagree with. The attorneys general urged a federal judge to block the arrests and detentions of pro-Palestinian student protesters.

“Our democracy depends on the freedom to think, to speak, and to learn without fear,” James said in a statement. “No one should face detention or deportation for exercising their right to free speech — not in New York, or in any other state in our nation.”

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on pending litigation. The Trump administration has insisted it is a “privilege,” rather than a right, to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States.

Faculty groups, including the New York University chapter of the American Association of University Professors, sued the federal administration March 25, alleging the revocations of visas were chilling speech on college campuses. The lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts federal court by the Knight Institute, a free speech organization at Columbia University.

Other legal briefs have also been filed in support of the AAUP, including one signed by 86 colleges and associations submitted the day before the attorneys general’s filing. The group included Fordham University and small liberal arts schools in New York that tend to be less reliant on federal research funding, such as Hamilton College and Bard College.

The attorneys general argued the Trump administration’s efforts were violations of the First Amendment that would inflict lasting harm on individual colleges, state economies and perhaps most acutely, the international students themselves.

“This policy is a dangerous overreach,” James said, “and I will not allow fear and censorship to replace freedom and opportunity. My office is standing firmly against any effort to weaponize immigration to silence free speech and dissent.”

The brief described the deportations as “antithetical to the principle of free expression that is supposed to define American higher education.” Stemming from the threat of deportation, the attorneys general said students and faculty are now avoiding controversial classroom discussions and research questions.

The New York office also disclosed the State University of New York has experienced a “sharp decline” in international applications, student visas and continued enrollment, according to the brief.

On Wednesday, the Daily News reported that 21 SUNY international students had lost their visas. Others who remain have steered clear of professional travel and federal research grants, or even reconsidered studying in the United States out of fear of deportation or being denied re-entry, the filing said.

The attorneys general added the chilling effect has weakened their states’ ability to compete for global talent and will cost them tax revenue, the ability to fill workforce gaps and job-generating businesses.

“As visa revocations accelerate across the Amici States every day, these chilling effects continue to multiply,” the coalition warned.

Over the past week, university administrators have increasingly sounded the alarm as visas are being revoked from international students who have no known ties to the pro-Palestinian protests. In many cases, the colleges were not notified of any changes in legal statuses, but happened upon them during routine searches of a federal database.

The opaque policy has touched private colleges and public university systems alike, including Columbia, the City University of New York, NYU and Fordham.

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