[ [link removed] ]Ayanna Pressley for Congress

Content warning: This message references sexual assault and violence.

Hello,

This week, I was in Louisiana where my colleagues Senator Markey,
Congressman McGovern, and I conducted oversight of two ICE detention
facilities where Mahmoud Khalil and my constituent, Rümeysa Öztürk are
currently being held.

Neither of them has committed any crime. Rümeysa should be back in our
home state, in the Massachusetts 7th. Mahmoud should be with his wife and
their newborn son.

Detaining them serves no purpose other than to silence dissent, to stoke
and instill fear — which is exactly what a dictator does.

We had the chance to meet with Rümeysa and Mahmoud during our visit. What
we saw and heard was harrowing. It was heartbreaking, and it is enraging.

They are being denied proper medical care. They are being deprived of
sleep. They are not being fed nutritious meals.

Rümeysa herself shared the story of having to wait three days, despite
repeated requests, simply for toilet paper. She has suffered multiple
asthma attacks. The medical care is grossly insufficient and culturally
incompetent. Rümeysa shared that a nurse removed her hijab without
consent.

The cruelty is the point.

They are humiliated daily, degraded, and denied the basic necessities of
any human being.

Despite these horrific experiences, Rümeysa and Mahmoud’s first priority
was not to make an appeal for their own respective cases. Instead, they
put their own well-being to the side to advocate for those who are
detained with them.

Rümeysa is a qualified researcher. She's been actively listening to and
spending time with the women that she is confined with, hearing their
stories, and came with copious notes that she had collected.

She shared stories of women being ripped away from their babies, women
with breast cancer who can't get the care that they need, and pregnant
women denied prenatal care.

When I asked her if anyone she knew had experienced sexual abuse or
assault, she told me she did not have the consent to share.

Before we met with Rümeysa, we went to one of the dorms. I was the only
woman in our delegation. When I entered, women clad in orange scrubs fell
into my arms.

They were desperate and crying and fearful. They kept saying, “I want to
talk to you. I want to tell you what's happening here, but will you
protect us when you leave? Who will protect us?” They were visibly
shaking.

These are private detention centers operated by billion dollar
corporations. Like my opposition to private prisons and profiting off of
mass incarceration, I vigorously oppose these companies making money on
disappearing immigrants.

This visit was not about optics. It was about accountability. It was about
affirming that no one in America, regardless of background, immigration
status, political beliefs, and more, should have their constitutional
rights to free speech and due process ripped away.

I feel a responsibility to carry the stories that I heard in my heart and
for that to inform my strategy and my advocacy.

This is what it means to conduct real-time oversight. This is the type of
bold activist leadership that this moment demands.

We must hold ICE and this hostile, lawless administration accountable.

We must protect our democracy and the fundamental rights of everyone who
calls America home. And we must bring Rümeysa and Mahmoud home now.

-Ayanna




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