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Comment by breadwinner | Hacker News Reader

Her crime is expressing an opinion. I am no Hamas supporter, but writing an opinion essay supporting Hamas seems like it would be allowed by the 1st amendment, regardless of the immigration status of the opinion writer.

In a statement to ABC News, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said: "Rumeysa Ozturk is a Turkish national and Tufts University graduate student, granted the privilege to be in this country on a visa. DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/tufts-phd-student-visa-arrested-im...

UPDATE: Her essay didn't even support Hamas, here's the essay: https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

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Also, anything of this sort should go through the legal system first. She’s not Bin Laden, there’s no movie-plot bomb with a countdown timer, they should be expected to file charges and allow her to confront the evidence rather than abducting her with a bunch of masked officers who aren’t even in uniform.

The increasing use of masked officers is the scary part. I don’t see the need for it. I’m sure the antagonist will say, “it’s for the officers safety; to prevent retribution, etc”. My answer to that is simply that there’s no retribution if you’re not doing something wrong.

Denying due process for these sorts of incidents is a hallmark of the current administration. Central to it is vilification of immigrants and false association with terrorists.

You can't mass enforce government actions on people on the scale the US wants to (millions of immigrants) via a legal system spread out around the country. You have to streamline the process. For efficiency you have to concentrate the groups in one area and setup streamlined processes at the place you choose to concentrate everyone (in this case everyone you don't want in the country). Luckily we have Elon's people refining their streamlining skills within the government before turning their gaze onto efficiency at these concentration points.

> You can't mass enforce government actions on people on the scale the US wants to (millions of immigrants) via a legal system

Then you don't do it. I really wish the vast majority of the country realized that a lack of due process for anyone is the same as a lack of due process for everyone.

Precedent was set long ago that saving money is more important than Constitutional rights in the US. The Trial Tax has long been imposed and sentences greatly extended on Americans' who dared exercise their constitutional rights. And no one cared.

https://www.nacdl.org/Media/TrialPenaltyScourgeofAmericanCri...

I'm concerned that people will read this and NotSee your point.

An Frankly, that's par for the course here.

I think folks in the US would be safer if they concentrated on the fact that:

"If they can remove due process from anyone, they can do it to you, too".

After all, once you're renditioned to a 3rd country with no legal status, what exactly are you going to do to get out of that situation? Hoping that you look white enough and never express a "bad" opinion doesn't seem all that safe to me.

As I understand it they point to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 for why it doesn't need to go through the courts and the Secretary of State has the authority to sign off on it unilateraly.

They still have to formally charge them and go through court cases to defend that determination.

https://www.justsecurity.org/109012/legal-issues-deportation...

> To prove that an LPR is deportable, the government must convene a “removal hearing” before an immigration judge. At that hearing, government attorneys must prove deportability by “clear and convincing” evidence. A number of provisions define the procedures for conducting removal hearings with some specificity. Under those rules, the government must afford LPRs (as well as others in removal proceedings) notice of the charges against them, a right to confront the evidence against them and present their own evidence in response, and a lawyer if they can afford one.

…

> While 237(a)(4)(C) itself makes the Secretary of State’s determination central to the question of deportability, no provision of immigration law grants the President, the Secretary of State, or anyone else unilateral authority to “revoke” LPRs of their status—by Executive Order or otherwise. They must follow the procedures described above.

Not sure why we'd believe whatever this administration accuses someone of. They have very little connection with truth and a lot of connection with unconstitutional and fascist behaviors. They have not earned trust or good faith.

They're testing the waters with green card holders now, but it's certain they'll eventually try this with citizens if they can get away with this (see both Project 2025 and their ongoing anti-trans policies).

> it's certain they'll eventually try this with citizens if they can

See: https://x.com/StephenM/status/1712094935820780029?lang=en

Typically pro-Palestinian student activists in the US go to lengths to not support Hamas and generally have multiple statements to that end.

To date, to the best of my searching, the DHS claims have not been backed up.

  In a statement to the Guardian, a DHS spokesperson said on Wednesday that Ozturk was “granted the privilege to be in this country on a visa” and, without supplying any proof, accused her of supporting Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza and led the attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, prompting a massive military response from Israel.

~ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/ice-agents-d...

> To date, to the best of my searching, the DHS claims have not been backed up.

The entire reason for adopting a system with no procedural safeguards is so that claims don't have to be backed up by anything, just as in the case of the completely bogus invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (the pro-Palestine campus activist deportations use a different pretext for denying any process, but the net effect is the same.)

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