Latest news with #RumeysaOzturk
New York Times
18-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
State Dept. Official Says Criticism of Israel Can Lead to Visa Revocations
A senior State Department official testified Friday that his office, which the Trump administration has tasked with vetting foreign students' social media posts and revoking student visas, has operated this year without a working definition of 'antisemitism' and routinely considers criticism of Israel as part of its work. The testimony, at the end of a two-week trial focused on the Trump administration's efforts to deport students such as Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk and others, helped build the case by the academic groups behind the lawsuit, who have argued that the government systematically targeted students based on their remarks about Israel. During a heated back-and-forth in Federal District Court in Boston, John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, said that the State Department regularly took into account speech or actions that it saw as hostile toward Israel. Pushed for examples of things he might consider in weighing whether to deny or revoke a student's visa, Mr. Armstrong testified that calls for limiting military aid to Israel or 'denouncing Zionism' could all factor in his agency's decisions. 'In your view, a statement criticizing Israel's actions in Gaza could be covered depending on the statement, right?' asked Alexandra Conlon, a lawyer representing the organizations behind the lawsuit. 'Yes, depending on the statement, it could definitely,' he said. 'You say that they're worse than Hitler with what they're doing in Gaza? — that would be a statement that, I think, would lead in that direction that you seem to be going, counselor.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
A recap of the trial over the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protesters
BOSTON — Plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's campaign of arresting and deporting college faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations spent the first few days of the trial showing how the crackdown silenced scholars and targeted more than 5,000 protesters. The lawsuit, filed by several university associations, is one of the first against President Donald Trump and members of his administration to go to trial. Plaintiffs want U.S. District Judge William Young to rule that the policy violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations. On Friday, a top State Department official testifying for the government insisted there was no ideological deportation policy as the plaintiffs contend. John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in Bureau of Consular Affairs, told the court that visa revocations were based on long-standing immigration law. Armstrong acknowledge he played a role in the visa revocation of several high-profile activist including Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil , and was shown memos endorsing their removal. 'We did not create a new policy or procedure here,' Armstrong told the court, adding that Trump's executive orders on terrorism and combating antisemitism only served to reinforce existing policy and require a review of current practices. Armstrong also insisted that visa revocation were not based on protected speech and called the allegation there is a policy targeting someone's ideology 'groundless.' 'It's silly to suggest there is a policy,' he said. Earlier in the day, attorneys for the plaintiffs pressed a second State Department official over whether protests were grounds for revoking a student's visa, repeatedly invoking several cables issued in response to Trump's executive orders as examples of policy guidance. But Maureen Smith, a senior adviser in the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, said protest alone wasn't a critical factor. She wasn't asked specifically about pro-Palestinian protests. 'It's a bit of a hypothetical question. We would need to look at all the facts of the case,' she said. 'If it were a visa holder who engages in violent activity, whether it's during a protest or not — if they were arrested for violent activity — that is something we would consider for possible visa revocation.' Smith also said she didn't think a student taking part in a nonviolent protest would be a problem but said it would be seen in a 'negative light' if the protesters supported terrorism. She wasn't asked to define what qualified as terrorism nor did she provide examples of what that would include. One of the key witnesses was Peter Hatch, who works for the Homeland Security Investigations unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over two days of testimony, Hatch told the court a 'Tiger Team' was formed in March — after the two executive orders that addressed terrorism and combating antisemitism — to investigate people who took part in the protests. Hatch said the team received as many as 5,000 names of protesters and wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law. The reports, several of which were shown in court Thursday, included biographical information, criminal history, travel history and affiliations with pro-Palestinian groups as well as press clips and social media posts on their activism or allegations of their affiliation with Hamas or other anti-Israel groups. Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation. 'It was anything that may relate to national security or public safety issues, things like: Were any of the protesters violent or inciting violence? I think that's a clear, obvious one,' Hatch testified. 'Were any of them supporting terrorist organizations? Were any of them involved in obstruction or unlawful activity in the protests?' Among the report subjects were Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump's clampdown on the protests. Another was Tufts University student Ozturk, who was released in May from a Louisiana facility. She spent six weeks in detention after she was arrested while walking on the street of a Boston suburb. She says she was illegally detained following an op-ed she cowrote last year criticizing the school's response to the war in Gaza. Hatch also acknowledged that most of the names came from Canary Mission, a group that says it documents people who 'promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.' The right-wing Jewish group Betar was another source, he said. Hatch said most of the leads were dropped when investigators could not find ties to protests and the investigations were not inspired by a new policy but rather a procedure in place at least since he took the job in 2019. Weeks before Khalil's arrest, a spokesperson for Betar told The Associated Press that the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities that it submitted to officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil's visa. The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that it was not working with Betar and refused to answer questions about how it was treating reports from outside groups. In March, speculation grew that administration officials were using Canary Mission to identify and target student protesters. That's when immigration agents arrested Ozturk. Canary Mission has denied working with administration officials. While Canary Mission prides itself on outing anyone it labels as antisemitic, its leaders refuse to identify themselves and its operations are secretive. News reports and tax filings have linked the site to a nonprofit based in the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. But journalists who have visited the group's address, listed in documents filed with Israeli authorities, have found a locked and seemingly empty building. In recent years, news organizations have reported that several wealthy Jewish Americans made cash contributions to support Canary Mission, disclosed in tax paperwork filed by their personal foundations. But most of the group's funding remains opaque, funneled through a New York-based fund that acts as a conduit for Israeli causes. The trial opened with Megan Hyska, a green card holder from Canada who is a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, detailing how efforts to deport Khalil and Ozturk prompted her to scale back her activism, which had included supporting student encampments and protesting in support of Palestinians. 'It became apparent to me, after I became aware of a couple of high-profile detentions of political activists, that my engaging in public political dissent would potentially endanger my immigration status,' Hyska said. Nadje Al-Ali, a green card holder from Germany and professor at Brown University, said that after the arrests of Khalil and Ozturk, she canceled a planned research trip and a fellowship to Iraq and Lebanon, fearing that 'stamps from those two countries would raise red flags' upon her return. She also declined to take part in anti-Trump protests and dropped plans to write an article that was to be a feminist critique of Hamas. 'I felt it was too risky,' Al-Ali said. ___ Associated Press writer Adam Geller in New York contributed to this report.
The Independent
07-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump taken to court over deportations of pro-Palestinian student protesters
Groups representing U.S. university professors seeking to protect international students and faculty who engage in pro-Palestinian advocacy from being deported after taking the Trump administration to court. A two-week non-jury trial scheduled to kick off on Monday in Boston marks a rarity in the hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed nationally challenging President Donald Trump 's hardline immigration agenda to carry out mass deportations, slash spending and reshape the federal government. In many of those cases, judges have issued quick rulings early on in the proceedings without any witnesses being called to testify. But U.S. District Judge William Young in keeping with his long-standing practice instead ordered a trial in the professors' case, saying it was the "best way to get at truth." The lawsuit was filed in March after immigration authorities arrested recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, the first target of Trump's effort to deport non-citizen students with pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel views. Since then, the administration has canceled the visas of hundreds of other students and scholars and ordered the arrest of some, including Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student who was taken into custody by masked and plainclothes agents after co-writing an opinion piece criticizing her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza. In their cases and others, judges have ordered the release of students detained by immigration authorities after they argued the administration retaliated against them for their pro-Palestinian advocacy in violation of the free speech guarantees of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Their arrests form the basis of the case before Young, which was filed by the American Association of University Professors and its chapters at Harvard, Rutgers and New York University, and the Middle East Studies Association. They allege the State Department and Department of Homeland Security adopted a policy of revoking visas for non-citizen students and faculty who engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy and arresting, detaining and deporting them as well. That policy, they say, was adopted after Trump signed executive orders in January directing the agencies to protect Americans from non-citizens who 'espouse hateful ideology' and to "vigorously" combat anti-Semitism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in late March said he had revoked more than 300 visas and warned that the Trump administration was looking every day for "these lunatics." The goal, the plaintiffs say, has been to suppress the types of protests that have roiled college campuses after Israel launched its war in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. Trump administration officials have frequently spoken about the efforts to target student protesters for visa revocations. Yet in court, the administration has defended itself by arguing the plaintiffs are challenging a deportation policy that does not exist and cannot point to any statute, rule, regulation or directive codifying it. "We don't deport people based on ideology," Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-American and anti-Semitic violence and terrorism - think again. You are not welcome here," McLaughlin said. The trial will determine whether the administration has violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment free speech rights. If Young concludes it has, he will determine a remedy in a second phase of the case. Young has described the lawsuit as "an important free speech case" and said that as alleged in the plaintiff's complaint, "it is hard to imagine a policy more focused on intimidating its targets from practicing protected political speech." The case is the second Trump-era legal challenge so far that has gone to trial before Young, an 84-year-old appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan. While other Trump-era cases have been resolved through motions and arguments in court, the veteran jurist has long espoused the value of trials and in a recent order lamented the "virtual abandonment by the federal judiciary of any sense that its fact-finding processes are exceptional. Young last month after another non-jury trial delivered civil rights advocates and Democratic-led states a win by ordering the reinstatement of hundreds of National Institutes of Health research grants that were unlawfully terminated because of their perceived promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion.
New York Times
05-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Under Trump's Crackdown, a New Crop of Immigrant Rights Groups Rises
The call came into the hotline one afternoon in March: A group of officers, masked and in plainclothes, were taking away a young woman in a hijab. ''Someone is being kidnapped!'' the caller said to Danny Timpona, the operator who answered the phone. His group, the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, had been preparing for such a moment. Within minutes, Mr. Timpona sent out volunteers to verify the report in Somerville, a suburb northwest of Boston. When they arrived to empty streets, they began knocking on doors, looking for anyone who could help them piece together what occurred. One neighbor offered footage from a home security camera. The video, which has since racked up millions of views, captured agents from the Department of Homeland Security surrounding Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen and doctoral student at Tufts University who spent the next six weeks in detention. It gave the nation one of the earliest scenes of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. A crop of grass-roots immigrant rights networks like Mr. Timpona's has been rising across the country to try to halt President Trump's agenda of mass deportation. They aimto quickly corroborate the presence of immigration officers. They document apprehensions that might otherwise go unnoticed. And they spread the word on social media about people being detained. These groups have recently been most visible in Los Angeles, where an immigration raid at a clothing wholesaler prompted a rapid response from activists who confronted federal agents. Days of protests followed. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Joe Rogan launches new attack on Trump administration
Podcaster Joe Rogan has backpedaled on his support for Donald Trump's administration, revealing on a recent episode that the thinks the president's deportation policies are 'insane.' On the July 2 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan and his guest, tech CEO Amjad Masad, slammed Trump for his merciless deportations of migrant workers and Palestinian students. During a conversation about Masad's Palestinian roots and his experience with politics in the tech industry, the CEO expressed his disappointment with the current administration. 'It's insane,' Rogan intervened. 'There's two things that are insane. One is the targeting of migrant workers. Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers. Showing up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really?' he added. 'Or Palestinian students on college campuses,' Masad added. Masad then brought up Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year. Ozturk spent six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention center and was released in May after a district judge ruled in favor of her claim that her detainment was illegal. Ozturk was in a Ph.D. program at Tufts University and wrote an op-ed in a student paper criticizing the college's ties to Israel. Rogan expressed his shock at Ozturk's detainment during the recent episode, questioning why writing an op-ed was enough to be arrested by ICE. Ozturk was arrested in March by agents in plainclothes , which was captured on surveillance camera and went viral. Masad explained that Ozturk's essay criticizing Israel was used as evidence from the Department of Homeland Security for her arrest. 'And that's enough to get you kicked out of the country?' Rogan reacted. Rogan's criticisms of Trump come after he had the president on his show in the run-up to the election. He later endorsed the president, and political pundits widely credited his show for the surge in young male voters that supported Trump in his re-election race. The Joe Rogan Experience has consistently taken the top spot on the podcast charts and has a strong influence over young men, with a recent survey by Media Monitors estimating his viewership is 71 percent male. 'They said we're gonna get rid of the criminals and the gang members first. Right? And now we're, we're seeing like Home Depots get raided, like that's crazy,' he added. Rogan clarified that he supported ICE deporting criminals, but didn't believe workers should be targeted. 'Like going in and raiding those people and putting 'em in jail because they've integrated into society in an illegal way. It seems stupid,' he said. Trump's key campaign point was securing the borders and mass deportations, which he has stuck to during the first five months of his second term. ICE raids have ramped up under Trump's administration, and his new One Big Beautiful Bill would continue to supercharge deportation efforts . The bill would make ICE the most heavily funded law enforcement agency, allocating around $170 billion to combat illegal immigration.
