‘It looked like a kidnapping’: Students continue to go missing under Trump
On Tuesday, people in masks and plainclothes surrounded Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University in Somerville, Massachusetts, declaring themselves police and detaining Ozturk.
“It looked like a kidnapping. They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They’re covering their faces. They’re in unmarked vehicles.,” Michael Mathis, whose security camera captured the incident, told The Associated Press.
As of Thursday, Ozturk is being held in a Louisiana ICE facility, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that her visa has been revoked. Thousands of people have been gathering at Tufts University demanding her release.
Similarly, Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, was detained by ICE in his home around 5 AM on Wednesday, according to The Crimson White. He is being held in the Pickens County Jail in Alabama.
Students Badar Khan Suri of Georgetown University and Leqaa Kordia of Columbia University are also being held in ICE facilities as they await potential deportation.
Other students have been targeted, but some were able to escape ICE before being detained.
Columbia University student Yunseo Chung, who is a permanent legal resident, is suing the Trump administration for attempting to detain her. A judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking ICE’s ability to deport her while attorneys litigate the case.
And last week, Ranjani Srinivasan, a PhD candidate at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, wrote on Instagram that she was "forced to flee the U.S. due to ICE threats and Columbia's complicity."
"ICE came knocking at my door without a warrant," she recalled, sharing that she might have opened it if her American roommate hadn't recognized the "knock as that of law enforcement."
Ultimately, Srinivasan fled to Canada after Columbia refused to protect her against the Trump administration’s threats.
"With the rapidly escalating situation, the criminalization of free speech, and eminent travel bans, what has happened to me can happen to you," she said.
President Donald Trump has painted students who protest or dissent in any way as terrorists, and he has successfully put a chokehold on universities like Columbia by withholding federal funding if they don’t comply with his threats. And instead of protecting their students, Columbia is falling in line.
Graduate students are already censoring themselves in their research, using code words in the titles of their research papers out of fear that the Trump administration would flag their studies.
The world’s brightest students have been choosing to come to the United States to study for a long time. But now, instead of getting a degree, these students are being followed, shackled, and labeled terrorists by the U.S. government.
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