Rumeysa Ozturk being arrested by Homeland Security agents on the streets of Somerville, MA

Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University in Massachusetts who is in the United States from Turkey on a student visa, was arrested by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents on the streets of Somerville, MA on the evening of March 26 as she left her apartment with friends to get something to eat in order to break her Ramadan fast.

According to reports, she was moved first to New Hampshire, then to Vermont, and finally flown to a facility in Louisiana because New Hampshire and Vermont didn’t have room to hold her. Her attorneys are attempting to have her brought back to New England, while federal attorneys are insisting that she be tried in Louisiana, since that is the district that’s currently holding her.

DHS is saying that Ms. Ozturk engaged in activity that was supportive of Hamas, which the U. S. regards as a terrorist organization and an enemy of Americans. This was the grounds they used to terminate Ozturk’s visa, though DHS has yet to provide any evidence of her pro-Hamas activity, other than an op-ed she jointly wrote with three other Tufts students and that appeared in the Tufts newspaper calling for Tufts take seriously the demands of pro-Palestinian students to recognized what they call Israel’s genocide against the people of Gaza and to divest the university of any ties to Israel and of any ties or businesses with ties to Israel.

Ozturk is not the only foreign national studying in the U. S. who has been detained by DHS. Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama who is from Iran, was arrested by DHS on March 25 and, of course, Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at Columbia, was detained in early March and is fighting efforts by the Trump administration to deport him. Still another Columbia student, Yunseo Chung, who has been in the U. S. for fourteen years, is suing the Trump administration to avoid deportation on the grounds that she participated in activities in support of Palestine.

As far as I can tell from press reports, none of these people have been charged with crimes, even those who have already had their visas terminated. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that immigrants and migrants to the U. S. do have constitutional rights. In the 1953 case of Shaughnessy v. United States, the Court ruled: “aliens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law.” That remains the law of the land.

Even still, that may be beside the point. Tricia McLaughlin, who is a spokesperson for DHS, explained that Ozturk was detained under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that says that the Secretary of State has the power to deport any non-citizen whose presence in the U. S. is determined to be a threat to our foreign policy. Our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, spoke of why he terminated Ozturk’s visa: “The activities presented to me meet the standard … of people that are supportive of movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States. If necessary and a court compels us, we’ll provide that information. But ultimately, it’s a visa. Judges don’t issue student visas. There is no right to a student visa.” So Rubio, as Secretary of State, seems to possess the authority to terminate Ozturk’s and the others’ visas on the grounds that he regards their activities as contrary to the foreign policy interests of the U. S. And it’s his opinion that he doesn’t have to tell anyone what those activities are, unless compelled to do so by a court.

But, as always, there’s a distinction between what one may do and what one ought to do.

Clearly we need to get criminal immigrants, legal or illegal, out of this country. Also, I don’t see the conflict in the Middle East as being between Palestinians in Gaza and Israel, but between Hamas and Israel. While Israel’s actions have not always been pure and innocent, they are no where close to the moral equivalent of Hamas. Let’s be clear, too, that Hamas is not interested in the well being of Palestinian Gazans. Hamas is interested in power, and they’ll do what they need to do to gain and hold power, including killing and using as political pawns the Palestinians of Gaza. Many Americans who claim that they’re supporting Palestinians in Gaza are really supporting Hamas. Some of them say so. Most do not. So, anyone in the U. S. with a student visa or, for that matter, anyone in the U. S. under any circumstances, who is actively supporting Hamas is a legitmate target for having their visas terminated and getting deported. Why? Because Hamas is a terrorist organization that is all too happy to kill Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans in order to secure their hold on power.

If these four people are genuine supporters of Hamas, then their visas ought to be terminated and they should be deported. But, Americans are not the kind of people who put such authority in the hands of one person, even such a person as the Secretary of State, and even such a Secretary of State as Marco Rubio. It is the American way to justify our punishments against people by putting forth for all to see the charges against them and the evidence corroborating those charges. That the federal government, in the case of these four, has not been willing to do that, suggests that this is a matter of virtue signaling to Trump’s base that he will not tolerate supporters of Hamas in the U. S. But he needn’t virtue signal that. There are likely numerous individuals in the U. S. who are open or clandestine supporters of Hamas. Deport them, and show everyone the grounds for doing so. That’s how we do things. It’s a strange and odius precedent to terminate visas and deport people without showing the American people the grounds for doing so. It makes people suspicious that the grounds are not really there. That causes people to lose confidence in the government and in how the government is acting on behalf of the people – or even if they really are. It has never been the will of the American people to put such trust in their government as to say, “Well, do what you think is right and we’ll just trust you.” No. We’ve been burnt too many times before.

If Rubio and the Trump administration are not willing to reveal the evidence that led to these people being detained, their visas terminated, and set up for deportation, then it makes it look like the government is simply using them as pawns in their game of demonstrating to the American people how serious they are about getting rid of terrorists and their supporters when, in fact, they’re doing no such thing. If these people are truly Hamas supporters who truly merit being deported and who have truly acted in a way contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States, then demonstrating that by putting forth the evidence should not be difficult at all.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.