ANGELO LYNN

When it happened last week, I missed the CNN report. But while at a New England newspaper conference this Friday-Saturday in Portland, Maine, I saw the televised news clip of the Turkish grad student at Tufts University in suburban Boston being suddenly confronted by masked men while walking on a sidewalk near her apartment. It was clear from the newsreel the masked officers offered little explanation of what was going on, handcuffed the 30-year-old female student within a matter of seconds and escorted her into a waiting unmarked car. Without charges or given any rights, she was whisked first to a prison in Vermont, then swiftly moved to Louisiana where she remains incarcerated.

It was shocking this could happen here. In America. For what? Expressing an opinion more than a year ago in a student newspaper.

That was all it took for the Trump administration to lock up a student who had the full rights to be in this country seeking a graduate degree at a prestigious American university.

This is what America has become under Trump and his administration.

Here are the facts:

• On March 25, ICE agents confronted Tufts University Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk on a sidewalk near campus during the day. A Turkish national, she was arrested by plain-clothed agents in unmarked cars.
• More than a year ago, in March 2024, Öztürk co-authored an opinion piece in the student newspaper critical of the university’s response to Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Associated Press that federal authorities detained Öztürk and revoked her visa after an investigation found she had “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”

But the only publicly known activity was her op-ed. According to Öztürk’s attorney, shesaid she is not aware of any criminal charges against Öztürk and when asked to detail the specific activities warranting the student’s visa being revoked, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declined. More than a week later, Rubio has not provided any evidence that she has engaged in any unlawful activities.

• A Tufts spokesperson has said Öztürk, 30, is a student “in good standing” and that her op-ed did not violate university policies on protests and expression.
• A week later, Öztürk has still not been charged and, according to CNN, has not been allowed to speak with a lawyer.

If you missed the video clip, you’re missing a fundamental change in what many Americans have always believed to be our nation’s core strength — that we’re a nation ruled by law and the adherence to it. Apparently, that is no longer true under Trump.

Watch the chilling video here, or google CNN Tufts grad student arrested.

Nationally, more than 11 newspaper groups are advocating for Öztürk’s release, including NEFAC (New England First Amendment Coalition), Student Press law Center, Freedom of the Press Foundation and many others. They say the detention appears to be a “blatant disregard for the principles of free speech and free press within the First Amendment.”

“The First Amendment is an asset, not an inconvenience,” wrote NEFAC and its fellow advocates in a March 28 statement. “Further, we note that these efforts may start with students, but it likely will not end there. If the federal government can take these steps for an op-ed in a student newspaper, what will prevent it from doing so with journalists and others with whom it disagrees?”

Nor is she the only student arrested by ICE without due process. According to CNN, “more than a dozen known students and faculty members at colleges across the country have been detained by federal agents amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which on college campuses, has taken aim at pro-Palestinian student activists and Israel critics.”

Such unlawful arrests are one more thing to rally against at this Saturday’s (April 5) Handsoff rally (see handsoff2025.com) against the alarming, and often undemocratic, changes taken by the Trump administration in its first 100 days. The statewide rally starts at noon in Montpelier, while a rally closer to home goes from noon to 2 p.m. in Brandon.

Angelo Lynn