Email text: On Tuesday, March 25th, Tufts PhD student and Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk was abducted on her way to an iftar with her friends by masked, plainclothes federal agents who had been watching her for two days prior. She was taken from Massachusetts to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, despite being in the States on a valid F-1 student visa.
Her crime?
Co-authoring an op-ed requesting that her school, Tufts University, divests from Israeli holdings.
What are we proving to the world if we cannot protect their students? If we target them for speaking their minds in the few years they come to study? This is shameful. The F-1 visa is a non-immigrant student visa. Rumeysa is simply an international student, here temporarily to obtain her degrees, and we as a nation have failed her.
On Ozturk's arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that they have now revoked her visa. He said, "We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that we’re going to take it away. We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country."
I find Secretary of State Rubio's words completely unacceptable and a disgrace on our country, whose core principle is meant to be freedom. At an alarming rate, more and more students are being taken off the street and sent to ICE facilities thousands of miles away for simply exercising their protected right to freedom of speech. Mahmoud Khalil, who was a legal permanent resident, is still not free from detention. His green card was revoked for protesting a year after the fact.
Our First Amendment rights are meant to protect our freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition. Co-authoring an op-ed is not a crime. Neither is attending protests, or organizing them. If a dissenting opinion is punishable by revoked visas, revoked green cards, and deportation, what is next? Are any of us free? Are any of us safe?
We cannot let the goal post of free speech shift.
As your constituent, I am asking that you demand an end to this madness. Demand an end to these abductions. I am asking that you support Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, support our students and all those who exercise their First Amendment rights.
Resist our country's slip into fascism.
Email text: On Tuesday, March 25th, Tufts PhD student and Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk was abducted on her way to an iftar with her friends by masked, plainclothes federal agents who had been watching her for two days prior. She was taken from Massachusetts to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, despite being in the States on a valid F-1 student visa.
Her crime?
Co-authoring an op-ed requesting that her school, Tufts University, divests from Israeli holdings.
What are we proving to the world if we cannot protect their students? If we target them for speaking their minds in the few years they come to study? This is shameful. The F-1 visa is a non-immigrant student visa. Rumeysa is simply an international student, here temporarily to obtain her degrees, and we as a nation have failed her.
On Ozturk's arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that they have now revoked her visa. He said, "We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that we’re going to take it away. We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country."
I find Secretary of State Rubio's words completely unacceptable and a disgrace on our country, whose core principle is meant to be freedom. At an alarming rate, more and more students are being taken off the street and sent to ICE facilities thousands of miles away for simply exercising their protected right to freedom of speech. Mahmoud Khalil, who was a legal permanent resident, is still not free from detention. His green card was revoked for protesting a year after the fact.
Our First Amendment rights are meant to protect our freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition. Co-authoring an op-ed is not a crime. Neither is attending protests, or organizing them. If a dissenting opinion is punishable by revoked visas, revoked green cards, and deportation, what is next? Are any of us free? Are any of us safe?
We cannot let the goal post of free speech shift.
As your constituent, I am asking that you demand an end to this madness. Demand an end to these abductions. I am asking that you support Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, support our students and all those who exercise their First Amendment rights.
Resist our country's slip into fascism.
