Last week, a young woman walked along a street in Medford, Massachusetts, on the outskirts of Boston. She was about to join friends for dinner. The PhD student was suddenly surrounded by swarm of men in hooded shirts. They pulled cloth coverings over their mouths and noses and grabbed Rumeysa Ozturk; they claimed to be police officers and arrested her. The incident was caught on video and someone off-camera calls out:
“If you’re police, why are you hiding your faces?”
Ozturk shrieked as the men confiscated her phone, handcuffed her wrists, stuffed her into an SUV and drove her away. Then, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials flew her to a detention facility in Louisiana, where she faced deportation for “engaging in activities in support of Hamas,” but did not specify what those alleged activities were.
A lawyer speaking on her behalf said she was unfairly punished for speaking in favour of Palestinians. Ozturk, who holds a legal education visa, has been working on a doctorate in child studies at Tufts University in Boston since 2018. A federal judge in Boston ordered a halt to her deportation. If DHS deports her, it will mark another in a sequence of presidential orders defying the rulings of federal judges.
I am reminded of these words: “First they came for the socialists. And I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. …”
The words come from a poem written by Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor, commenting on the silent complicity of German intellectuals and clergy as the Nazis rose to power in his country in the 1930s and launched the Holocaust.
Remarkably, the poem is displayed prominently at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I think it’s time to broadcast its message, given where rights and freedoms are headed under the Donald Trump administration.
By way of background, a legal analyst speaking on U.S. television thinks that DHS action relies on a 1952 immigration law that “gives the (U.S.) Secretary of State very broad discretion to designate a non-citizen, including a visa holder (such as Ozturk), as a potential threat to national security.”
Elie Honig said it looks as if the DHS under the Trump administration is relying on it more and more, adding that the 1952 law does not give the Secretary of State unilateral power to declare someone a security threat. “The defendant is entitled to due process,” he said.
Such unilateral action and apparent failure to allow due process was evident last month, by the Trump administration rounding up, shaving, shackling and deporting about 200 “illegal” immigrants to the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
U.S. authorities claimed the Latino detainees were all members of the Venezuelan Tran de Aragua gang. Many of those deported are Mexican nationals, which drew the attention of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
“No Mexican should be sent to any place but Mexico,” she said, but was ignored by Trump. In addition, the American Civil Liberties Union has attempted to block the transfer of these men to Guantanamo, citing harsh conditions and suicide attempts among the migrants held there.
Pastor Niemöller’s anti-Nazi warning continues: “Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. …”
Indeed, given the green light by their president in March, similarly hooded and masked Homeland Security types descended on Columbia University in New York. The agents had warrants to search two residences, but did not name those sought; they merely indicated they sought individuals who had participated in demonstrations.
A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, Todd Blanche, said the raids were part of the president’s “mission to end antisemitism in this country…”
And I return to the poem of silent complicity: “Then they came for the Jews. And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. …”
During similar witch hunts by such fascist politicians as U.S. Senator Joeseph McCarthy in the 1950s, my uncle lived in New York. A landed immigrant from Greece, Peter Tsakalos worked at a bunch of different jobs. He joined a camera club as a hobby and was then horrified to see a poster at his apartment building accusing the club’s members of being communists.
My uncle was paralyzed with fear that his shutterbug membership would have him deported back to Greece as a subversive. He never spoke of cameras or club members ever again.
“Finally, they came for me,” Pastor Niemöller’s damning poem concludes. “And there was no one left to speak for me.”
Silent opposition is not an option.