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“U.S. immigration authorities have detained and revoked the visa of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University near Boston who had voiced support for Palestinians in Israel's war in Gaza… A video of the arrest showed masked and plainclothes agents taking the 30-year-old Turkish national into custody near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts.” Reuters
“A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said federal authorities detained [Rumeysa] Ozturk after an investigation found she had ‘engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.’ The department did not provide evidence of that support…
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration has revoked the visas of at least 300 people, including Ozturk… ‘We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist, to tear up our university campuses,’ Rubio told reporters.” AP News
Here’s our coverage of the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia. The Flip Side
The left is critical of the administration, arguing that these efforts chill free speech.
“The footage has been among the most shocking documents of the new administration’s brazen approach to immigration policing: A Fulbright scholar, in the U.S. legally, snatched off the street by masked men and quickly vanished into a detention facility in Louisiana. Not to mention, after a day of fasting for Ramadan…
“The case is similar to that of Mahmoud Khalil… though Ozturk’s apparent offense seems even more anodyne. She co-wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper calling for Tufts to divest from Israel. (The Trump administration claims that Ozturk ‘engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization’; Hamas is not mentioned in the op-ed.)”
Henry Grabar, Slate
“Surveillance footage shows what surely must have felt traumatizing, as plainclothes officers usher her briskly into a waiting car. There’s no indication she has any violent history, so why could DHS not simply have sent a letter notifying her that her visa had been canceled and that she had 30 days to leave the country? The objective seems to have been to sow fear…
“A dispiriting irony in the Ozturk incident is that it occurs as her home country of Turkey drifts deeper into authoritarianism. Demonstrators took to the streets there after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan jailed his chief political rival, the mayor of Istanbul, on what appear to be bogus charges…
“The BBC said Thursday that Turkey had deported its correspondent who had been covering the protests because he was ‘a threat to public order.’ The U.S. government has less moral authority to condemn such actions when it, too, harasses visitors.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“As I wrote this column, [a] colleague emailed a Spanish newspaper asking them to erase her previously published opinion pieces out of fear of retaliation. Several German colleagues, similarly cautious, have begun regularly deleting WhatsApp conversations after a French scientist was turned away at the US border for private text messages criticizing Donald Trump…
“Whether or not these specific individuals face imminent deportation is beside the point. The real danger lies in the chilling effect: the Trump administration’s policies deliberately target not only undocumented immigrants – as seen during Trump’s first term – but also perfectly legal immigrants. It is no coincidence that only those who publicly criticize the administration or its allies find themselves under threat. This represents a calculated strategy to silence dissent.”
Berna León, The Guardian
The right generally defends the administration, noting that those detained will receive due process.
The right generally defends the administration, noting that those detained will receive due process.
“One critique of the arrest is that she had no way of knowing that the plainclothes agents were legitimate authorities. But, even if the first agent didn’t announce himself (he may well have and we just can’t hear it), a second agent with a badge around his neck quickly approaches. And then a female agent enters who tells Ozturk what is happening and repeatedly reassures her…
“Ozturk isn’t ‘disappeared.’ It’s true that she was walking to a meal at one moment, and then at another moment wasn’t — again, that’s inherent to any arrest. But after an initial period when her family and attorneys reportedly had trouble finding out where she was, everyone now knows that she is in a facility in Alexandria, La. We can assume she will have ample legal representation in a case that achieved instant notoriety…
“Whatever happens, she’s not going to go to Leavenworth. The question is whether she’s staying here, or going home… The lurid terms applied to the case are another indication that the Left, at bottom, doesn’t accept that borders are legitimate and our nation gets to decide who comes here and who doesn’t in keeping with our national interests.”
Rich Lowry, National Review
“No foreigner has the ‘right’ to be in America… Americans must be selective about who we allow in the country. Not every culture is compatible with American culture. If we fail to be selective in our immigration policies, we risk allowing foreign ideologies to erode our foundation. As Alexander Hamilton warned, America’s survival depends on ‘the preservation of a national spirit and a national character.’”
Brianna Lyman, The Federalist
Some argue, “If there is evidence of Ozturk’s support for Hamas, the State Department should make it public. If there is evidence that Ozturk took over campus buildings or harassed Jewish students, it should be case closed, sayonara. But it should also go without saying that writing an op-ed should not, alone, be a cause for visa revocation…
“Yes, Rubio has significant authority to expel any visa holder for a wide range of reasons. Yes, hatred toward Israel antagonizes many Americans. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist group… Yes, the scourge of rising antisemitism is a major concern — especially for Jewish Americans. Still, it should concern all Americans that visitors to our country are being expelled on the primary and, it seems, the sole basis of their lawful speech. This action undermines America’s hard-won reputation as the home of the free.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
A libertarian's take
“Americans deserve Homeland Security officials who are focused more on terrorists than on searching dorm rooms. And Americans deserve a president who supports a free-speech culture, obeys court orders, and fulfills rather than violates his oath by offering due process before depriving anyone of liberty. As the historian Timothy Snyder recently wrote, ‘If you are a citizen and you are casting doubt on the importance of due process, remember this: you need due process in order to prove that you are a citizen.’”
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
