UPDATE: Trump administration flip-flops on mass cancellation of foreign student visas. This is a prudent decision but another huge unforced error by the Trump team. via New York Times:
Friday marks one month since six masked federal agents seized Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish graduate student at Tufts University, on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Ozturk has been slandered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and by Department of Homeland Security officials — at least according to a State Department memo that found that she had done nothing to justify seizing her without warning as if she was a terrorist kingpin. Well, she did write an oped for a college newspaper a year earlier, so….
Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute and I had a rowdy 40 minute chat about the Ozturk case and the growing censorship peril on Wednesday. This is part of the Radio Rothbard series and will be online shortly. Ryan greenlighted the following excerpts from our interview.
UPDATE: Here’s the link to the full interview.
The feds grab Ozturk (3 minutes): https://mises.org/mises-wire/first-they-came-op-ed-writers
The Trump administration is vanishing people on the streets of America like happened in Argentina in the 1980s (4 minutes).
Here’s the rough text of that second MP3 file:
Ozturk is simply a woman who co-wrote an op-ed that was downright tame compared to so many of the op-eds on both sides of this issue on the Gaza controversy over the last year and a half, but she was vilified by that. And it wasn’t just that, that someone said, okay you’ve gone too far, so we’re gonna take away your student visa.
No, she was put in leg shackles. She had a chain around her waist. She was frog marched out and she’s been in government detention, I guess almost a month now. If she was arrested on the 25th, . And I was curious about this ’cause I was thinking. What happened to Rosa Parks who was arrested after she protested the segregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama?
And I was thinking how was she treated? And she was booked she was held at the police station for three and a half hours, maybe put in jail, Wrigley, but she was set free after less than four hours. And here you got this woman who co-wrote an op-ed and she’s been in shackles and changed and put in these detention facilities that are severely overcrowded and very disruptive for for almost a month.
And she didn’t know what was happening when she was first grabbed. She thought she might be killed and. There was a fasting line which she says, one of the federal officers told her, she said one of the federal officers down there says, we are not monsters.
We do what the government tells us. Oh, okay, so that proves you’re not a monster. I think that’s been around the track a few times. Historically, it didn’t do well in 1946 as a defense.
I believe there was a federal judge ordered on Monday or Tuesday. To move her back to Vermont from she’s down in, in Louisiana right now to move her back to Vermont or to move her to Vermont, . But the the Trump administration is filing an appeal or has filed an appeal. To try to block that so that they can keep her down in these crowded cells down there in the Southland.
And they’ve already sought to deport her. They’ve been blocked on that so far in court. So the thing about Ozturk, , she’s being treated like she’s a public enemy.
It doesn’t matter if she finally gets out, dragged around the country to these different detention centers being stuck in a very overcrowded ice detention center in Louisiana for weeks and weeks. This is a head [euphemism alert] screwing thing.
It’s something that changes a person’s life, but this is what the people in the Trump administration want. Part of what I was trying to figure out with the information from the State Department that, okay actually , there’s no evidence that she’s done anything wrong.
What I wonder is, was this a screw up by the Trump people or were they trying to send a message. That even though you haven’t done anything wrong, if you’ve simply co-signed one little news college newspaper oped, that’s enough to grab you off the street and act like you’re a top 10 terrorist.
Are they trying to frighten everybody into submission and into silence? She was calling for the university to honor the vote of the student Senate, I think, which had called for divestment. Okay, woman, that’s all it took. You’re gone. You vanished. She vanished. That’s, maybe that’s the right phrase. This is all it takes to make you vanish.
This is more like it was in Argentina, in the dark times down there, or in a lot of authoritarian countries around the world. . People don’t realize the history of habeas corpus and why it was such an important principle in 1215 and Magna Carta because rulers would make people vanish and simply to have their right to say, okay.
Bring forth the body, bring bring forth the person, give them a hearing. But, the Trump people aren’t doing that with Ozturk. it’s grim.
****
https://mises.org/mises-wire/foreign-student-persecution-imperils-any-american-who-advocates-freedom
She has the privilege of visiting our country, attending a university, studying and earning a degree, then returning to her own country, and there try make a difference in the lives of Turkish citizens if she so chooses.
She has no RIGHT to say as she chooses, nor to criticize the current administration here!! She is NOT an American citizen and as such should not expect to be afforded the same rights and privileges as a citizen of the United States of America.
If she wants to be critical, she can return home and be critical from there. ALL foreigners critical of our President and administration should be deported!! All non citizen law breakers should be deported!
I just don’t understand what is so hard about citizens of the USA vs. non-citizens as far as rights and privileges for you low information cretins on the left to understand!!
How do you propose to distinguish who has the right to criticize the govt. in public? Maybe require non-citizens to wear some type of special apparel so that police and federal agents can identify them if they go to a protest?
Simple – NO non-citizens in the country for more than a vacation!
Yes if that is what it takes, make non-citizens wear a distinguishable piece of clothing…..easy…..they are here as guests. When you are a guest in someone’s home you don’t criticize the food, or the linens, or the furniture, or the way the homeowner treats the neighbors cat, if you do you will almost certainly be told to……. leave. Wow what a novel idea that is so hard for bleeding heart liberals to admit to……they wouldn’t put up with any of that in their private lives, but they want to rub illegal aliens “rights” in the face of true patriots.
Wow, that’s a novel idea. Maybe something like a yellow Star of David sewn to their clothes? That’s not a good look.
I suspect there is more here than meets the eye, and her arrest was not just about her op-ed piece. Photos from the Tufts demonstrations show signs advocating “Glory to the Martyrs,” “Down with Settler States (USA and Israel),” etc.
If Ozturk was at the forefront in these demonstrations, advocating support for Hamas, a declared terrorist organization, then maybe her arrest is legit. Who knows?
In any case, unlike many, I am not jumping to conclusions until more information is available.
DHS has had multiple federal court hearings at which they have failed to present any evidence of Ozturk’s alleged misconduct aside from the op-ed. If the Trump administration has additional evidence but chooses or refuses to divulge it to federal judges….
From the Washington Post piece headlined: “No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found.”
excerpts: “Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged.”
“The memo, written by an office within the State Department, raises doubts about the public accusations made by the Trump administration as it has sought to justify Ozturk’s deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk engaged in activities “in support of Hamas,” a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but neither that agency nor U.S. prosecutors have provided evidence for that claim.
“After receiving the recommendation from DHS, the State Department found that while Ozturk had protested Tufts’ relationship with Israel, neither DHS nor ICE nor Homeland Security investigations produced any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization, according to U.S. government employees briefed on the State Department’s memo.
“The memo also said that a search of U.S. government databases on Ozturk did not produce any terrorism-related information about her.”
*****
Some students engaged in violence at protests over the last year and a half. But there is no reason to presume that anyone who writes an op-ed was a violent perpetrator. According to the St. Dept, the feds had no evidence aside from the op-ed at the time Ozturk was snatched off the street.
https://www.aclum.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/104_order_re_jx_transfer.pdf
Federal judge on April 18: “The government has presented little evidence to rebut Ms. Ozturk’s constitutional violation claims.”
Same judge: “The Court notes at the outset that this
case has been proceeding rapidly, and new evidence has been
emerging regularly. For example, on Friday, April 11, 2025, Ms.
Ozturk’s counsel transmitted to the Court the Armstrong
Memorandum, which contains probative evidence regarding the
government’s motivations but was received by Ms. Ozturk’s
counsel after the April 10 filing deadline on these issues. See
ECF No. 91. Similarly, on Sunday, April 13, less than twenty-
four hours before this Court held a hearing on these issues, Ms.
Ozturk’s counsel submitted as an exhibit an April 13, 2025
Washington Post article reporting on the existence of an
additional State Department memorandum, though that memorandum
2:25-cv-00374-wks Document 104 Filed 04/18/25 Page 63 of 74
64
has not yet been provided to this Court. See ECF No. 95. These
memoranda, along with any other evidence held by either party
but not yet disclosed to the Court, are important to the
resolution of both a request for release on bail and a final
determination.”
So what did you do to your neighbor’s cat???????????????
link to WP https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/13/tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk-rubio-trump/