More Police State Tactics

I have previously written about the police state-style detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a student protester at Columbia University and a U.S. legal permanent resident. Khalil was seized by Department of Homeland Security agents from the lobby of his student housing building, taken first to a detention center in New York City, then to another detention center in New Jersey, and eventually to a third detention center in Louisiana. Throughout this time, Khalil's wife, who is an American citizen, and his lawyer were trying to track down his whereabouts. Khalil was not accused of a crime but rather the simple exercise of the right of free expression. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, who previously signed an executive order supporting freedom of speech, apparently supports limits on speech when it involves criticism of Israel. The warning sign set off by Khalil's arrest has now become a blaring siren as additional students have since been similarly detained due to the "crime" of criticizing Israel.

In the aftermath of Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, many in the U.S. — especially students — reacted by demonstrating solidarity with the Palestinian residents of Gaza rather than the Israeli victims of the attack. The concern of those showing support for Palestinians was that Israel's reaction would be overly harsh and severely out of proportion. Indeed, that fear was almost immediately validated and, over time, has shown to be, if anything, understated. In the months since October 7, Israel has engaged in genocide, killing at least 50,000 Palestinians and perhaps as many as twice that number. Almost all of Gaza's infrastructure has been destroyed. As I write this, Israel has a full embargo of food, humanitarian aid, and electricity on Gaza. The shutoff of electricity has caused Gaza's desalination plants to close, leaving the residents without drinking water. Israel is literally bombing Palestinians as they sleep in tents, wiping out entire families at a time. Yet, in today's United States, criticizing these actions can get you deported.

During the presidential campaign, Trump promised to remove foreign students at U.S. universities who supported terrorism or engaged in antisemitic actions. The way this commitment is being implemented, however, reveals Trump's unorthodox positions on two issues. The first is the apparent belief by Trump and his officials that First Amendment rights do not apply to non-citizens. This is in contrast to the fact that the First Amendment does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens and that the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that non-citizens enjoy free speech rights. The second issue is how the Trump administration apparently defines "terrorism" and "antisemitism." In both cases, simple opposition to the policies of the state of Israel or support for the Palestinian residents of Gaza appears to be enough. One need not even mention Jews or Hamas to be considered an antisemite or a supporter of terrorism. Simply expressing opposition to Israel's ongoing genocide is sufficient to be labeled a terrorism supporter and an antisemite.

After the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied that he was detained with the intention of being deported due to his exercise of free speech. However, Rubio's convoluted explanation made claims regarding Khalil being a supporter of Hamas that are not supported by evidence and, eventually, Rubio circled back to a focus on Khalil's actions that are covered by the First Amendment. It is a simple fact that Khalil has not been charged with a crime. Officially, he has not even been accused of supporting either terrorism or engaging in antisemitism. Rather, he has been accused of "activities aligned to Hamas". That is a meaningless accusation.

When Khalil was arrested, the Department of Homeland Security engaged in a pattern that has since been repeated in a number of subsequent arrests. Students have been seized without warning by officers who are often masked and sometimes dressed in plainclothes. The students are shuffled between detention centers, ultimately ending up in Louisiana, which is more than 1,000 miles from where they were arrested. Their lawyers have trouble identifying their location or with what, if anything, they have been charged. Make no mistake about it. These are police state tactics.

In a case very similar to Khalil's, masked men detained Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University. Suri was arrested outside his home in northern Virginia and quickly whisked off to Louisiana. The government justifies Suri's detainment and planned deportation on the basis that he spread "Hamas propaganda" and has "close connections to a known or suspected terrorist". Again, the alleged "Hamas propaganda" appears to be nothing more than standard expressions of support for the residents of Gaza and opposition to the Israeli massacres. Like Khalil, Suri is married to an American citizen. She is of Palestinian heritage, and her father served as a political advisor to the Prime Minister of Gaza over 15 years ago. Suri's father-in-law, Ahmed Youssef Saleh, has actually been critical of Hamas for its October 7 attack. This is the presumed association with a terrorist. The government is apparently trying to deport Suri because of his father-in-law. It actually appears that DHS would have liked to go after Suri's wife but, because of her U.S. citizenship, was unable. Suri seems to have been their consolation prize.

A third case occurred yesterday when a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk, was detained on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts. Ozturk is a Fulbright scholar studying for a PhD in child study and human development. A video of Ozturk's arrest has been widely circulated. It shows Ozturk standing on a sidewalk when she is approached by a hooded man in plainclothes who grabs her phone and arms. Additional individuals, some masked and none with identifying uniforms, quickly swarm Ozturk and hustle her off to an unmarked car. A lawyer representing Ozturk immediately filed a habeas petition, which a judge granted and ordered that Ozturk not be moved out of Massachusetts without the approval of the judge. Nevertheless, Ozturk appears to have been moved to Louisiana. As in the previous two cases, Ozturk has not been charged with a crime. A DHS spokesperson said that Ozturk has engaged in "activities in support of Hamas." According to activists at Tufts, Ozturk was not prominent in student protests. However, she was a co-author of an op-ed in the Tufts University student newspaper calling on the university to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide" and to "divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel." This is perfectly legitimate speech.

Before going further, I will stress as I have previously that if any of these students have committed crimes, they should be charged and tried. If found guilty, deportation is probably reasonable. But these individuals have not been charged, let alone found guilty. They all have been targeted merely for their exercise of free expression. Their "crime" has been criticizing Israel. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is currently more permissible within the U.S. to criticize the U.S. government than it is to criticize the Israeli government. The government has not accused any of these students of engaging in violence. In fact, the government cannot even provide evidence to support its allegations of support for terrorism or Hamas. This is simple retaliation for speech that is unpopular with the Trump administration, or more importantly, unpopular with diehard supporters of Israel.

What I have described above is harrowing in many ways. This is America. We do not expect unidentified masked men and women to seize a person off the street and secret them off to a hidden detention center, out of reach of family and lawyers. But there is perhaps even a darker side. Both Khalil and Ozturk were targeted by Canary Mission, which is described by Wikipedia as "a doxing website established in 2014 that publishes the personal information of students, professors, and organizations that it considers to be anti-Israel or antisemitic". While Canary Mission does not appear to have mentioned Suri, they have written about his wife. As I said above, Suri appears to have been targeted more due to his wife than because of his own activities. But this makes this series of arrests even more concerning. When Khalil was arrested, DHS agents did not even know his correct immigration status. In each of these cases, the government has been unable to provide even minimal evidence to support their allegations. By all appearances, DHS is not doing very much in the way of investigations. It is possible that DHS is doing nothing more than relying on Canary Mission's blacklist. If this is the case, we are clearly on the other side of the looking glass. By any definition of the term, these three individuals are currently political prisoners. Regardless of your view of their positions on Gaza and Israel, if you have any commitment to free speech, you should demand their immediate freedom and an end to attempts to deport them. A pro-Israel blacklist should not be the cause of deportations.

As an addendum, there was an unrelated incident involving DHS much closer to home yesterday. DHS agents, most of them masked, attempted to detain the school nurse at a District of Columbia Public Schools elementary school. This school is just over a mile from my home and well-known to many DCUM users. Staff at the school, showing considerably more courage than any of the universities involved in the above incidents, rallied to support the nurse. After they demanded to see a warrant, which the government agents were unable to produce, the DHS personnel withdrew. Again, these are police state tactics and completely unacceptable.

Update: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that he has revoked the visas of more than 300 students, who he called "lunatics". Speaking specifically about Rumeysa Ozturk, he suggested that she had created a "ruckus". There is no evidence that Ozturk did anything that could remotely be described as creating a ruckus. This increases the likelihood that Rubio is acting on the basis of very thin information, likely nothing more than the Canary Mission blacklist. Rubio appears to be responsible for one of the most significant attacks on free expression that I've ever witnessed in the United States. Rubio is an unprincipled fraud who lacks both the integrity and skills for his position. This is to be expected from someone who was personally humiliated by Trump, yet agreed to work for him and now kisses his backside. Rubio is an embarrassment to our country.  

Update 2: Another student, Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from Iran studying mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama, was arrested at his home by ICE agents. Doroudi was temporarily being held at the Pickens County Jail with no charges listed. An employee at the jail told "The Crimson White", the University's newspaper, that individuals held for ICE are normally transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana.