Lawmakers visit detained Tufts student as Trump admin appeals return order

A group of Bay State lawmakers described harrowing conditions as they recounted a visit to a Louisiana immigration facility and they warned that if university students can be detained there without a trial so can anyone else When the cabinet can imprison people like them who dissent without due process in this instance there is nothing to stop the ruling body from going after you too noted U S Rep Jim McGovern during a press conference Wednesday McGovern s remarks followed a trip with Sen Ed Markey and Rep Ayanna Pressley to a U S Customs and Immigration Detention Center in Louisiana to visit Tufts University pupil Rumeysa Ozturk Ozturk s detention the group disclosed violates her rights as legal resident of the United States and a human being What we saw and heard was harrowing It was heart-breaking and it is enraging Pressley declared at a hastily arranged press conference at Logan Airport The detained foreign nationals they met with the congresswoman declared are denied adequate medicinal care subjected to sleep deprivation not well fed and are not routinely provided with basic necessities like toilet paper or blankets to sleep with Several she noted openly wondered if the nation and God has forgotten about them The cruelty is the point Pressley commented They are humiliated daily degraded and denied the basic necessities needed by any human being Ozturk a fifth-year doctoral pupil studying at Tufts University on a aspirant visa was apprehended by masked immigration agents in Somerville on March Her arrest came after her visa was revoked over alleged endorsement for Hamas a U S -designated terrorist organization Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that students studying in the United States as Ozturk was are not invited here to speak out against U S agenda If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a pupil and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities harassing students taking over buildings creating a ruckus we are not going to give you a visa Rubio mentioned in late March According to the memo revoking her visa Ozturk had been involved in associations that may undermine U S foreign initiative by creating a hostile atmosphere for Jewish students and indicating promotion for a designated terrorist organization including coauthoring an op-ed that determined common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus Lawyers for the Turkish national say her allegedly hostile engagements amount to an op-ed that criticized Tufts leadership s response to the Tufts Population Union Senate passing several resolutions concerning human rights violations in Gaza which would under normal circumstances be considered First Amendment protected speech Tufts University President Sunil Kumar mentioned in an early April that the op-ed was not in violation of any Tufts policies and that no complaints were filed with the University or to our knowledge outside of the University about this op-ed Ozturk remains in good standing the university stated Ozturk has not been charged with any crime and remains in Louisiana even after a judge ordered her not to be removed from Massachusetts in the first place According to the lawmakers she was locked up in Louisiana so that immigrations functionaries could find a more favorable court The Trump administration has maintained there was not adequate space to house her in New England In Trump s America her so-called crime was writing an op-ed in the Tufts Daily newspaper Markey disclosed This is repression This is authoritarianism in the Trump era and Rumeysa is the victim of it According to McGovern if people don t stand up for Ozturk and others like her in short order our children and grandchildren will be afraid to speak their minds for fear of administration reprisal These are not ordinary times we re living through McGovern declared and if the removal of due process can start with students like Ozturk it ends with you Now is the time he continued for people to stand up and speak out It s the time for courage before it s too late What we witnessed makes me wonder whether we as a country are losing not only our humanity but our values the values that this country was supposed to be built on freedom of speech due process under the law human rights and human dignity these are not just words these are the ideas that we re supposed to live by McGovern reported Last week a federal judge ordered the cabinet by May to return Ozturk to Vermont where she was briefly held after her apprehension and where a habeas corpus petition has been filed on her behalf Jessie Rossman legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts noted in a comment that the judge s order sent a clear message that any attempt to manipulate the judiciary is purely wrong Judge William Sessions held that the regime s removal of Rumeysa from Vermont to Louisiana violated the spirit of the exigency order from the federal court in Massachusetts This is a crucial step for upholding the rule of law in our country Rossman reported The Trump administration appealed that ruling on Tuesday and solicited for a stay of the return order pending the disposition of their appeal Rumeysa Ozturk Contributed photo via AP File U S Rep Jim McGovern seen here with Sen Ed Markey speaks during a press conference Wednesday about a trip to Louisiana where Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk is being held by federal immigration agents Nancy Lane Boston Herald