“Is This A Kidnapping?”

The scene is like something from a police procedural TV show. A young woman walks out of her apartment on a cold Massachusetts morning. She’s wearing her long overcoat. Her backpack is on her back. She looks like she’s going to class or to study. A strange man walks up to her, says something, and then attempts to grab her wrists. In the next second, more people are wearing masks to cover their faces. Everyone is talking at the same time. They take her cell phone and her backpack before shoving her into an unmarked black van.

A neighbor catches the entire event on his cell phone. “Is this a kidnapping?” He asks. He doesn’t get an answer.

The young woman is Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student legally attending Tufts University. She wasn’t carrying a weapon. She wasn’t planning to bomb anyone or anything. Her only ‘crime,’ which isn’t a crime, was co-authoring an article published last year advocating for the human rights of Palestinians.

Here’s the video and synopsis from MSNBC:

ICE is now the thought police. Last week, a doctor was detained simply for sharing opinions on social media that conflicted with President Felonious Punk’s agenda. Several others have been arrested on similar charges. One doesn’t have to be guilty of anything to be caught up in the sweeps that are not being questioned nearly enough.

In a 2-1 decision, a Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected an effort by the Justice Department to lift an order temporarily blocking President Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Tren de Aragua gang members. A federal judge tried to prevent Ozturk from being removed, but the order did not come in time to prevent her from ending up in a Louisiana detention camp.

No one in the administration gives a fuck about the rights of anyone. In a conversation with Faux News on Tuesday, Punk’s border czar, Tom Holman, said, “We had, you know, numerous collateral arrests. And I’ve said it before on this show, and I’ll keep sayin’ it: Collateral arrests are gon’ be … people who aren’t criminals that are found when we’re lookin’ for the criminal are gonna be taken into custody.” All the while claiming that he’s making cities safer.

Another video making the rounds this morning comes from the Associated Press, which was accompanying Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as she toured the El Salvadoran prison where alleged Venezuelan gang members were sent. The whole thing was set up to be a photo op. Men, all with their heads shaved, are standing tightly together with their shirts off so that their tattoos are showing. Others are sitting on bunks in a severely overcrowded cell. Here’s the AP video

A couple of things are worth mentioning here: 1. Entering the U.S. without proper authorization from an immigration officer is a misdemeanor. 2. Immigrants in the U.S. commit crimes at lower rates than the U.S.-born population. Those are both well-established and easily researched facts, but the facts have never been something to bother the President or any of the immensely unqualified people around him.

In upholding the court order preventing more gang members from being deported, Judge Patricia Millett wrote, “The government’s removal scheme denies Plaintiffs even a gossamer thread of due process. No notice, no hearing, no opportunity—zero process—to show that they are not members of the gang, to contest their eligibility for removal under the law, or to invoke legal protections against being sent to a place where it appears likely they will be tortured and their lives endangered.”

The judge’s decision, which may well be pushed to the Supreme Court now, raises the question of whether government officials might possibly be held liable for their illegal actions. No one has filed such a lawsuit yet as other more pertinent cases move their way through the courts. Even if such a lawsuit was filed, the Department of Justice would likely argue that the actions taken were ‘in the line of duty’ and therefore immune to prosecution.

In yet another of the many cases continuing to pile up, a South Korean student, detained because she participated in a pro-Palestinian protest, was ordered to be released while she fights the attempt to deport her. The judge in that case made the point that she does not pose ‘potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences’ that would warrant her to be detained while fighting the case.

No one, regardless of their citizenship, is safe as long as immigration authorities continue to detain people for the simple act of expressing a thought. The freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution apply to everyone. The spurious claim that these people are somehow a threat to national security is hollow. It is the actions of this President and his administration that are the greater threat to the nation.

Now is the time to speak up. If we don’t, we could find ourselves sitting in the back of an unmarked van sooner than one might think.