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civil liberties
'This Is Authoritarianism': Lawmakers Demand Release of Abducted Tufts Student
Rumeysa Ozturk's case is one of several "deeply troubling incidents," they wrote. "The administration should not summarily detain and deport legal residents of this country merely for expressing their political views."
Mar 28, 2025
Most of Massachusetts' congressional delegation and dozens of other Democratic lawmakers on Friday called for the release of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk and demanded answers from members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet about her "disturbing arrest and detention" by immigration officials.
Ozturk, a Turkish national, is a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a Ph.D. in child and human development. She was targeted for deportation after co-authoring a Tufts Daily op-ed critical of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip—like various other anti-genocide students recently "abducted" by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"The rationale for this arrest appears to be this student's expression of her political views," 34 lawmakers—led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, all Massachusetts Democrats—wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Nome, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and ICE acting Director Todd Lyons. "We are calling for full due process in this case and are seeking answers about this case and about ICE's policy that has led to the identification and arrest of university students with valid legal status."
The letter details how Ozturk was yanked off a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Tuesday: "Surveillance footage of the arrest shows officers approach her in plain black clothing, with no visible badges. She screams as an officer grabs her hands. During the arrest, one officer pulls out his badge as other officers appear and cover their faces with masks. The surveillance video shows officers loading Ozturk into an SUV and departing in three unmarked vehicles. Bystanders observed that the incident 'looked like a kidnapping.'"
Rumeysa Ozturk was kidnapped in plain sight & sent to Louisiana to be locked in the same detention center Mahmoud Khalil was sent to. She's a peaceful protestor, grad student, & my constituent who has a right to free speech & due process. Now she's a political prisoner. Free her now.
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— Ayanna Pressley (@ayannapressley.bsky.social) March 26, 2025 at 6:56 PM
"While the Department of Homeland Security has not publicly specified the alleged activities that led to Ozturk's arrest, this arrest appears to be one of the latest examples in a string of ICE arrests of university students with valid green cards and visas because of their political views," the letter notes. "Tufts University was informed that Ozturk's 'visa has been terminated'—similar to other recent cases in which ICE agents have declared, without any judicial or administrative hearing, that they were 'terminating' or 'revoking' students' green cards and visas."
"These are deeply troubling incidents," the lawmakers asserted. "The administration should not summarily detain and deport legal residents of this country merely for expressing their political views. Absent compelling evidence justifying her detention and the revocation of her status, we call for Ozturk's release and the restoration of her visa."
They also demanded responses by April 5 to a detailed list of questions about Trump administration policies, Ozturk's case, and "health-related complaints" at the ICE facility in Louisiana where she was transferred, "including for denying food that appropriately accommodates detainees' religious views, serving undrinkable water, and not complying with protocols on the spread of infectious diseases."
The letter is signed by six other Massachusetts Democrats—Reps. Jake Auchincloss, Katherine Clark, Stephen Lynch, Jim McGovern, Seth Moulton, and Lori Trahan—as well as progressive leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"Absent from this list," notedZeteo reporter Prem Thakker, are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Many of the letter's signatories have already individually spoken out about Ozturk's case this week.
"This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa's constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released," Pressley said in a Wednesday statement, as reports emerged about her arrest. "And we won't stand by while the Trump administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms."
Markey shared the surveillance footage on social media Wednesday and wrote: "'Disappearances like these are part of Trump's all-out assault on our basic freedoms. This is authoritarianism, and we will not let this stand."
Warren also turned to social media on Wednesday, stressing that "this arrest is the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties," and calling out the Trump administration for "ripping people out of their communities without due process."
"We will push back," Warren pledged.
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Hey Rupert, the War on Terror Called and It Wants Its Propaganda Back
It’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.”
Mar 21, 2025
The arrest and possible deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder with a student visa, for his organizing role at Gaza solidarity protests last year has sent shockwaves throughout American society.
As I wrote at Haaretz (3/11/25), Khalil’s arrest is an intense blow to free speech, as punishment for speech and other First Amendment-protected activities will create a huge chilling effect. In a piece denouncing Khalil’s arrest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (3/10/25) quoted American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss saying, “This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years.”
The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.
In a letter (In These Times, 3/18/25) dictated over the phone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, Khalil said, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
While a judge blocked his deportation, as of this writing, Khalil is still in ICE custody (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). AP (3/9/25) reported that his arrest is the first known “deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses” last year. The Trump administration argues, according to the news service, that people like Khalil, whose Green Card was revoked by the State Department, “forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.”
Alarms Raised
Many in the media have raised alarms about the extreme threat to free speech represented by Khalil’s arrest. Even the editorial board (3/12/25) of the increasingly Trump-panderingWashington Post warned, “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?” Other corporate newspapers and outlets (Bloomberg, 3/11/25; USA Today, 3/13/25; Boston Globe, 3/14/25; Financial Times, 3/14/25) published similar defenses of Khalil’s First Amendment rights, arguing that his arrest fundamentally threatens American liberty.
There is a good reason for the outcry. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, but the executive branch, without consulting a judge, revoked his legal status based on his political speech. As The Intercept (3/13/25) described, the federal government is invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which the secretary of state has
the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a U.S. citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.
The Department of Homeland Security justified the arrest on its claims that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” In other words, the Trump administration has revoked Khalil’s green card, arrested him, and intends to deport him based on his constitutionally protected protest activities.
Rupert Murdoch’s outlets, rather than speak out against this shredding of the First Amendment, have been promoting the Trump administration line. The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.
‘Inimical to the U.S.’
The New York Post (3/10/25) ran the cover headline “ICE Knowing You!” Its editorial board (3/9/25) childishly wrote that “ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!” It said that the anti-genocide protest “movement was never merely about protest.”
Two scholars at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, Ilya Shapiro and Daniel DiMartino, took to the Post op-ed page (3/11/25) to counter the free-speech defense of Khalil. They deemed the Gaza protests “illegal,” saying that stripping permanent residents of the legal protections for those “who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life” doesn’t threaten constitutional freedom.
If demanding a cease-fire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too.
While admitting “we don’t know the details of the due process he’s been given”—which is a crucial consideration when it comes to constitutional protections—the duo said, “But one thing is clear: The executive branch has the authority to vet noncitizens based on their views, thanks to the laws Congress has passed and the Supreme Court has upheld.”
The Post piece repeats a point Shapiro made at the conservative City Journal (3/7/25): “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States.” Who decides what are “causes” that are “inimical”? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently.
Fox News (3/12/25) also referred to Khalil as “pro-Hamas,” reporting that the Department of Homeland Security said “that Khalil ‘led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.’” The link between Khalil’s participation in protests and supporting Hamas is spurious on its face. If demanding a cease-fire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too. Younger Americans, in particular, stand out for their support of Palestinians in the current war (Pew Research, 4/2/24).
Not ‘Really About Speech’
The more erudite but no less fanatically right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/12/25) said, “A green card comes with legal obligations, including the disavowal of terrorism,” and that “Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.” The board matter-of-factly stated, “The case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.”
Matthew Hennessey, the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor (3/12/25), also called him a “pro-Hamas Columbia agitator,” adding, “If he didn’t love [the U.S.], why didn’t he leave it? The world is big. It has many elite universities.” Hennessey added, “When you’re a guest, it’s more than bad manners to cheer the slaughter of your host’s friends.” There’s no proof offered that Khalil did anything illegal, only that he said some things Hennessey didn’t like.
Journal columnist William McGurn (3/10/25) also dismissed the free speech concerns, saying that these protests went beyond speech—again, offering no evidence other than that the president said so. And he warned that pesky judges who stick too close to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law will get in the way of Khalil’s deportation. He said:
“So I bet what will happen,” says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, “is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment-protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.”
These “protests” weren’t really about speech. If all the “protesters” had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it.”
‘War on Terror’ Playbook
Feeling some déjà vu? The right-wing media’s defense of arresting and deporting a green-card holder for engaging in protest rests on simply labeling him and the protests as “pro-Hamas,” the idea being that any criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza is an endorsement of the Palestinian militant group that the U.S. State Department designates as a terrorist organization.
As I told CNN International’s Connect the World (3/12/25), the situation feels similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when it was common for supporters of George W. Bush, including his allies in the right-wing press, to label antiwar protesters as endorsers of anti-American terrorist violence.
Oppose the invasion of Afghanistan? You must be pro-Al Qaeda. Oppose the invasion of Iraq? You must be supportive of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This helped brand any questioning of the administration as treasonous, helping to build consensus not just for aggressive military imperialism at abroad, but in curtailing civil liberties for Americans at home (Extra!, 9/11).
So it’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.” Calling Khalil and the anti-genocide protests, which include thousands of supporters of many backgrounds—prominently including Jews—“pro-Hamas” is just another tired trick in the “War on Terror” propaganda playbook.
To understand how shallow this tactic is, keep in mind that Khalil has been on record about his politics and the issue of antisemitism. As a key negotiator for the protests, he had appeared on CNN and was asked about the protests and their impact on the Jewish community. The network (CNN, 4/29/24) summarized:
“I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined. They go hand in hand. Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” Khalil said, noting that some members of Columbia’s encampment are Jewish and held Passover seders earlier this week, led by Jewish Voices for Peace.
“They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said of the organization.
Helping to Crush dissent
Note that the Journal‘s McGurn sought comments from Yoo, who is identified only as a law professor, and not a Bush administration attorney who notoriously supported the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” (NPR, 2/23/10), or as an advisor to the first Trump administration on its aggressive anti-immigration methods (Guardian, 7/20/20). Yoo is also a proponent of applying the unitary executive theory to the Trump administration, which for Yoo, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books (11/1/20),
becomes a springboard to justify Trump’s authoritarian policies on war, immigration, deregulation, executive branch appointments, pardons, and the supervision of Justice Department investigations.
Israel’s own record on respecting freedom of speech is spotty, and has gotten worse since it launched the assault on Gaza (Democracy Now!, 11/9/23; CBC, 5/30/24; 972, 6/24/24; Freedom of the Press Foundation, 10/25/25; Times of Israel, 3/12/25). Israel, however, does not have a constitution, and activists and scholars have chronicled the nation’s erosion of democratic norms (Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21; Journal of Democracy, 7/23; Haaretz, 8/1/23; Deutsche Welle, 11/28/24). The United States is supposed to be governed by a constitution that, at least on paper, sets the gold standard among nations in protecting freedom of speech.
Alas, in the name of patriotism, the Murdoch press wants to erode that part of America’s tradition in order to help the Trump administration amass power and crush dissent.
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'Unparalleled Attack on the Rule of Law' by Trump Puts US on Global Watchlist
"The Trump administration seems hellbent on dismantling the system of checks and balances which are the pillars of a democratic society," said one senior leader with the group CIVICUS.
Mar 10, 2025
An organization that tracks threats to civic freedoms announced Monday that it has added the United States to its watchlist, citing the Trump administration's "unprecedented" executive orders that the group says undermine democratic institutions, rule of law, and global cooperation.
"The Trump administration seems hellbent on dismantling the system of checks and balances which are the pillars of a democratic society," said Mandeep Tiwana, interim co-secretary general of CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society activists and organizations, in a statement Monday.
"This is an unparalleled attack on the rule of law in the United States, not seen since the days of McCarthyism in the twentieth century. Restrictive executive orders, unjustifiable institutional cutbacks, and intimidation tactics through threatening pronouncements by senior officials in the administration are creating an atmosphere to chill democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal," Tiwana continued.
The CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which highlights countries where there is a serious decline in "respect for civic space," also noted declines in the status of four other countries on Monday: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan, and Serbia. Democratic Republic of the Congo and Pakistan earned a rating of "repressed," while the watchlist considers the civic space rating of Italy and the United States to be "narrowed." Serbia earned the civic space rating of "obstructed."
"Open" is the highest ranking a country can receive, and denotes when "citizens and civil society organizations are able to organize, participate, and communicate without hindrance."
"Narrowed" is the second-highest tier rating, and countries earn this designation when people can exercise civic freedoms, including the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, though occasionally violations of these rights occur.
Following his return to the White House, "Trump has issued at least 125 executive orders, dismantling federal policies with profound implications for human rights and the rule of law," according to the group.
Other actions that CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist highlights include: rolling back federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, implementing a widespread pause on foreign aid, taking steps to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and laying off employees there, and withdrawing from the World Health Organization, the U.N. Human Rights Council, and the Paris Climate Agreement.
"These measures come amid a broader potential curb on the freedom of association," according to the group, which points to the passage of the so-called "nonprofit killer" bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in November, 2024. If it became law, the bill would allow the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of non-profits it deems to be supporting terrorism.
The group points to Trump's January 30 executive order which is purportedly aimed at combating antisemitism. In an accompanying fact sheet with the order, Trump is quoted saying: "To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before."
Critics had warned that the executive order could chill political speech on campuses, according to The Guardian, and it is freshly in the news after Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead the Gaza solidarity encampment on Columbia University's campus.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said described Khalil's arrest as being "in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting antisemitism," according to The Associated Press.
The group also highlighted recent actions that touch on press freedom concerns. For example, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced in February that the administration will now decide which outlets get to participate in the presidential press pool, in a break with precedent.
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