Friend — I have an op-ed out in the New York Times today alongside my friends Reps. Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley.
Earlier this week, we went down to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana to meet with Rümeysa Öztürk, a student at Tufts University and legal US resident who was arrested, detained, and slated for deportation by the Trump administration despite committing no crimes.
What we found in Louisiana was not just a young woman locked up without charge but also a democracy being put to the test.
One of the bedrock values — and legal rights — of America is free speech. The First Amendment guarantees us the freedom to speak out and the freedom of the press to shine a light.
When Rümeysa Öztürk co-signed an op-ed in her school newspaper criticizing her university’s response to student resolutions regarding Israel and Gaza, she was exercising those freedoms. Freedoms that are afforded to everyone in this nation, not only full-fledged citizens, whether we agree with what they have to say or not.
But the Trump administration has decided to violate these sacred freedoms. Rümeysa was abducted and taken away by ICE not for breaking any laws, but for having an opinion that differs from Trump’s. Now her education and her entire life in America have been taken away without due process, leaving her alone in a cell with no contact with family and living in terrible conditions.
This is not immigration enforcement. This is repression. This is authoritarianism. And my colleagues and I are calling on DHS to release Ms. Ozturk immediately, drop any proceedings against her, and begin an investigation into the conditions at this detention center.
I have been ringing the bell on Trump’s flouting of the constitution since his inauguration, and I know you have been too. Now is the time to invest in our pro-democracy movement so we can create a sustainable opposition.
Trump’s approval ratings are dropping. Regular folks are realizing that we are confronting a constitutional crisis. Millions have already protested his administration out in the streets. Now’s the time to keep fighting together, not be silent and turn away.
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In solidarity,
Ed Markey
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