Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk planned to meet friends at an Iftar dinner on Tuesday to break their Ramadan fast. Ozturk never made it. As she walked on the sidewalk in Somerville, Massachusetts, the Tufts University Ph.D. candidate was taken into custody by six masked plainclothes officers.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, as late as Thursday, Ozturk was held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Basile, Louisiana, over 1,600 miles from where she was captured.
According to her lawyer, Ozturk has not been charged with any crimes. Ozturk is in the United States legally on a valid F-1 visa, which allows international students to pursue full-time academic studies.
What warranted her arrest? At this point, all we know is that Ozturk wrote a piece in the school newspaper criticizing the school’s response to pro-Palestinian students.
This comes at the same time a Columbia University student from South Korea faces potential deportation for involvement in a pro-Palestinian protest. Columbia was recently in the news when Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian graduate student, was arrested earlier this month.
Again, as far as anyone can tell, the students have done nothing illegal besides demonstrate their support for Palestine and call the war in Israel a genocide. Let that sink in.
The students were in the country legally. They have not been charged with an offense. Their only “crime,” as far as anyone can tell, is voicing their support for the Palestinian people and denouncing Israel’s war in Gaza and the West Bank.
The current wave of arrests by the Trump administration demonstrates that its anti-immigrant policies were never about following the law. The fundamental purpose behind these arrests and attempted deportations stems from old-fashioned racism and a political purge currently running rampant across the country.
In addition to cracking down on international student protestors, the White House is using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as a backdrop to arrest, detain, and deport Venezuelan immigrants. Legal experts have always been skeptical of Trump’s promise to use the wartime act as a tool for deporting immigrants, but here we are nonetheless.
Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act and arrest of student protestors are being challenged in U.S. courts. Thankfully, judges are delaying and blocking Trump’s actions.
However, whether the president will abide by court rulings or continue thumbing his nose at the judiciary branch of government is yet to be determined. This is where things get even scarier.
Last year, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of giving Trump immunity from his actions associated with the January 6 insurrection. However, the court went even further: “It also granted presidents in general a definitive ‘absolute immunity’ from prosecution for core official acts and said presidents should be presumed immune for a much more expansive list of acts.”
In other words, the president is the sole entity determining the legality of their actions. If a president decides they are acting in the country’s best interest, no matter what those actions may be, then they have immunity based on their position as president.
During this Lenten season, the Trump administration’s actions against international students and the Supreme Court’s ruling last year have me pondering the last days of Jesus’ life. As the religious elites mounted their efforts to silence Jesus’ message about radical love, inclusion and justice, they shouted, “We have no king besides Caesar!”
America is experiencing what happens when people with power and privilege feel threatened. Instead of seeing diversity and inclusivity as strengths, they determine they’re a threat.
Then, they begin to purge their communities of the perceived threat. Historically, this has been achieved through killing, enslaving, incarcerating or deporting the perceived threat.
If the United States is to survive a second Trump administration, my fellow citizens need to wake up. The president is not a king. The president is not above the law.
The president is not the sole branch of government. Our Founding Fathers would be appalled at how much power the other two branches have ceded to the executive branch.
America must demand that the executive branch cease this political purge. Donald Trump is more dangerous now than ever, but he is not entirely immune from the people. When concerned citizens come together in support of democratic principles, those in power begin to worry.
The time is now for people of good faith to unite in solidarity against the current purge happening across our country. We must stand up, speak out and demand that the president be held accountable and obey the courts. We must bring our voices together, singing the song of freedom that so many sang before us.
If we fail, we will lose our country to authoritarians. If we prevail, we will be stronger as a diverse group that stands up for democracy.
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