Scholars around the country are being detained and sent to detention centers. The justification for this is an immigrant provision dating back to the Cold War. The Trump Administration may also do this by deeming the student a threat to national security. They can do this by looking through a person’s background so they can check if the citizen has is a danger to national security or engaging in suspicious activity. If the government finds activity that could be a threat to national security, they can then deem the person as a national threat and detain them. So far, they have revoked more than 300 visas, which are primarily student visas.
Many of the students detained were involved in the pro-Palestine protests that occupied college campuses last year. Even if a person was not participating in any other protests, the Trump Administration are still deporting foreign born students with the belief that they are involved in pro-Palestine activities.
Last year, protests stormed college campuses during Israel’s assault on Gaza. The Pro-Palestine student-led protests were asking for their colleges to divest from any corporations or research agreements that support Israel. They spilled to over 90 campuses all over the world. Some of the protests turned violent due to the high tensions between the pro-Palestinian protesters and counter-protesters, of whom believe the Biden (and now Trump) administration should continue unconditional support for Israel. This caused the police to arrest over 1,600 students and staff in total that were involved in the protests. If the student wasn’t arrested they were suspended, put on probation, and in rare cases, expelled based anti-Palestinian sentiments or belief these students made Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. Counter-protestors, who typically would start the violence by attacking encampments, were not met with any consequences.
A Turkish student enrolled in a PhD program at Tufts University named Rumeysa Ozturk, was on her way to break her fast at an Iftar dinner with her friends. Suddenly, she was physically restrained and arrested outside her apartment by unnamed, masked agents who restrained her in an open street and placed her in an unmarked van. She is now being held at the detention facility in Louisiana, with her student visa terminated. Rumeysa was allegedly detained due to her writing an opinion piece in her school newspaper. The university where Rumeysa was a student released a statement saying there was “no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention.”
Badar Khan Suri was a postdoctoral associate studying and teaching at Georgetown University on a student visa. He was detained because they believed he was working with the terrorist group named “Hamas” and said he was actively spreading Hamas propaganda. An article stated that he was surrounded and detained by masked DHS agents on his way home to his wife and three children after breaking his fast for Ramadan. After consideration, a federal judge blocked the government from deporting the professor due to there not being any evidence that he was in contact with a terrorist group. Despite the court order, the government is still making an attempt to deport Badar. This happened after several websites began to vilify Suri and his wife, a Palestinian American, over their connection to Palestine. The professor filed a complaint challenging his detention.
Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and recent graduate of Columbia University, was detained for “pro-Palestine activism” when he was on the college campus. He is being held in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Facility in Jena. A federal judge in New York has challenged his detention and scheduled a hearing in New Jersey.
One of Khalil’s lawyers said that lawyers and advocates are concerned that they may target more students in the future.
“None of them have criminal records,” Sisay, Khalil’s lawyer. “This is an attack on speech, and I think any sort of criminal allegations that may be brought in the future would still be attached to this desire to chill free speech and to say that certain speech is not welcomed under this administration and can lead to you being criminalized, detained, and deported” (NBC News).
At a news conference in Guyana where he met with leaders, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.”
By detaining student protestors, officials are breaching the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. They are sometimes not even giving the detained due process or a chance to defend themselves in court. This is included in the constitution that all individuals, citizen or non-citizen, must have the right to due process.
Sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-administration-takes-aim-immigrant-students-rcna198346
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/student-protesters-visas-green-cards-trump-ice-detentions-free-speech/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgetown-university-researcher-detained-by-ice/
