Trump's Police Are Now Disappearing Students for Their Op-Eds
techdirt.com
techdirt.com
“We revoked her visa. It’s an F-1 visa, I believe. We revoked it, and here’s why—I’ve said it everywhere, and I’ll say it again.
Let me be abundantly clear: If you apply for a student visa to come to the United States and you say you’re coming not just to study, but to participate in movements that vandalize universities, harass students, take over buildings, and cause chaos—we’re not giving you that visa.
If you lie, get the visa, and then engage in that kind of behavior once you’re here, we’re going to revoke it. And once your visa is revoked, you’re no longer legally in the United States. Like every country, we have the right to remove you. It’s that simple.
It’s crazy—stupid, even—for any country to let people in who say, ‘I’m going to your universities to riot, take over libraries, and harass people.’ I don’t care what movement you’re with. Why would any country allow that?
We gave you a visa to study and earn a degree—not to become a social activist tearing up our campuses. If you use your visa to do that, we’ll take it away. And I encourage every country to do the same.
Every country has the right to decide who enters as a visitor. If you invite me to your house for dinner and I start putting mud on your couch and spray-painting your kitchen, you’re going to kick me out. We’ll do the same if you come to the U.S. and cause a ruckus.
We don’t want that here. Go do it in your own country—but not in ours.”
You're going to take the word of a lunatic who signed off on not just deporting random people, but shipping them into slavery at an El Salvador super prison? A dude who has an autism tattoo in support of his brother? A dude who has his soccer team's logo as his tattoo?
Rubio & this administration are deeply unserious, acting as capriciously as possible. There's been no evidence, and incredible refusal to even allow the courts their legal chance to review grievances filed for Alien Enemies Act, as is required.
Having the head of state going around bullying people who wrote to the college Op-Eds is insane. This is so far below their status. Rubio is pissing his panties because someone wrote an op-ed accurately and simply asking the college to please recognize & act on a lawful & decent vote by the Tufts Community Union Senate is not a horrible act. This isn't putting mud on the couch or spray painting a kitchen, this is very basic & civil free speech, and Rubio is pissing on the bill of rights that Americans for 250 years have been proud of. Because he's a monster & a coward, in bed with other monsters and cowards.
And on that note, it seems that you agree at least in theory that there has not been any actual evidence presented, yet you seemingly won't accept it because you still assume that writing an op-ed is the only thing they have done, and you've already made up your mind on this matter.
Why don't we wait until the evidence comes out before jumping to conclusions?
I think it's entirely possible the student could have actually done something wrong, and either Rubio is simply not revealing it, or he actually doesn't know the details and was only told smaller bits from someone else. OR, maybe the student did not do anything besides the op-ed and the government is blowing it way out of proportion... but either seems just as plausible to me.
Why do you assume this will ever happen?
What evidence? The administration has lready said in court that they have no evidence some of the men committed any crimes.
What's still being litigated is if the administration will be able to send any more flights to El Salvador.
The latest is because the US government is paying El Salvador $6 million dollars to keep these men incarcerated, the US essentially has jurisdiction over them.
Also, because some women were included by mistake, they had to be flown back to the US… so we know the US government could have them returned to the US if they wanted to.
What's the basis for how this works legally? Would the US no longer have commitments if the deal was done for free?
> Also, because some women were included by mistake, they had to be flown back to the US… so we know the US government could have them returned to the US if they wanted to.
Were they returned by request of the US? And does that mean that the US has to follow certain procedures as if those people were still under their jurisdiction?
It seems more likely that El Salvador rejected them because their prison is only for men.
But allegedly folks are being told to get out for resharing a post or two. Maybe more evidence could come to light! I think the government has a strong mandate to make a very strong case.
But I am highly highly dubious more than a couple of these folks are doing anything even marginally bad (in fact many i think are doing great good speaking civilly & responsibly about very bad unnecessary human suffering being caused, which is patriotic as hell imo).
This is the administration blowing up the 1st amendment, having themselves a little tantrum. Rather than say anything real, Rubio's likening the situation to trashing the couch and spray painting the kitchen is an invented offense to mask how utterly inadequate & woefully juvenile this administration is behaving, how they have nothing whatsoever to justify this political violence they are casually inflicting.
Also notable that many of these universities rely on having international students to foot the bill for American students. Ruining this funding stream further's a strong desire the right has to end universities and college, which is incredibly low & cruel terrible for everyone except the incredibly wealthy. https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/2/1/24056238/conservatives...
Because people are being taken from the streets. The onus is on the people arresting her to show that they are in the right to do this. It's the United States and generally you expect people to be treated as if they're innocent until there's proof of their guilt.
If they don't know why they're do this then they shouldn't be doing it.
It's not that I trust them, I don't, and I disagree with their tactics too, which I think are being (slowly) dealt with politically and judicially, but again I don't think it inherently means everyone they arrest is completely innocent.
I agree with you that not providing evidence at the point of arrest isn't inherently indicative of ill intent but this administration refers to people wrongly arrested as "collateral," pays money for people to go to prison outside of American jurisdiction to make sure there's no fallout if they make mistakes etc etc. Is there no line where your trust level would shift?
It's entirely possible that isn't the case here though, I don't have enough information to say. If you're referring to Abrego Garcia, it later came out that the "administrative error" was due to an informant claiming he was a gang member, but I don't think there was ever any evidence of that, so I think it's still an unknown and an ongoing case.
Certainly I think everyone should be entitled to due process though, illegal immigrant or not. And I can't tell if many of this admin's actions are willful deception or gross incompetence, or both.
Your comment that they pay money for people to go to prison explicitly "to make sure there's no fallout if they make mistakes" sure seems unfounded and sensationalized to me though. It might look like that but I have not seen any proof that it's intentional in the way you say it.
Her op-ed never mentioned Hamas by name. This seems to be the closest it came: "systemic changes that the collective voice of the student body is calling for are for the University to end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination" — https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj
Despite the headline, the author admits they don't actually know that the op-ed was a reason for the arrest — "She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana."
edit: luckily enough people vouched for the story to be rescued.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/28/rumeysa-oztu...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/detained-tufts-student...
Is it simply because the border agents feel empowered under Trump or is it bigger than that?
Then how do you know it was only because of an op-ed?
So whatever it is, and it seems not to have been uncovered, the "response" seems unmeasured.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/29/us/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-u...
Alleging that she was part of a larger group that committed crimes... but if that's the case, why didn't they arrest anyone else who was there?
What you can do is take someones VISA on basis of small gathering that you call protest.
I wasn't trying to imply she was merely there, as Rubio is saying they participated. They never said the op-ed was related... so my question is, if the only reasoning is taking part in the protest, then why arrest nobody else who was there?
She has the right to protest provided she has committed no crime.
I thought the situation is absolutely nonsensical. Being able to disagree with anyone is part of our social fabric. Once you ban that then wild stuff starts to happen.
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition *the Government* for a redress of grievances.