This is what fascism looks like

Black clad masked men circle a woman in a white coat. They grab and handcuff her, then whisk her away in an unmarked SUV to parts unknown. A scene in a spy movie? Vladimir Putin’s Russia? How about on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts.

This is not what democracy looks like. This is what fascism looks like.

Rumeysa Ozturk is a doctoral candidate in the department of child study and human development at Tufts University, in the United States on a student visa. Reports say she supports the pro-Palestinian movement and was not an active participant although she co-wrote an op-ed in the Tufts Daily newspaper:

…”demanding that the University acknowledge the Palestinian genocide, apologize for University President Sunil Kumar’s statements, disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. These resolutions were the product of meaningful debate by the Senate and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law. Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.the university’s response to the movement, urging Tufts to “end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination.”

Reasonable people can and do disagree about the endless and apparently insolvable conflict in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been credibly charged with war crimes. Unfortunately, the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 often get lost on student protesters who exercise their First Amendment right to protest.

But the Trump regime has seized on those who object to the Netanyahu government’s actions as expressions of antisemitism — even though there are organizations that proclaim their Judaism in their calls for peace.

The same Trump regime that is hard at work in enacting the Christian nationalist Project 2025 agenda. Backed by evangelical Christians who support Israel as a necessary first step for the Second Coming, when according to the Book of Revelations, non-believers, i.e., Jews, either accept Christ or are destroyed.

Sounds a bit antisemitic.

And it’s important to note anti-Zionism is not the same as antisemitism. Orthodox Jews oppose Zionism as preempting the arrival of their own Messiah.

And what is wrong about standing up for humanity — whether it is to express horror at Hamas building its headquarters and armory under civilian areas or Israel’s disregard for the innocent women and children who attempt to live above those bases of operation.

These important distinctions are lost in the Trump regime’s two-pronged anti-immigrant sweep. And make no mistake the focus on Muslims who raised their voice in campus protests is a separate target from alleged Venezuelan gang members being swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

Ozturk, like Mahmoud Khalil, the green card-holding Columbia University student, was whisked off for detention in Louisiana, a fact only revealed to her attorneys 24 hours later.

And in defiance of a Massachusetts federal court judge’s order that she not be moved out of the state without prior notice.

“I don’t understand why it took the government nearly 24 hours to let me know her whereabouts,” her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said. ”Why she was transferred to Louisiana despite the court’s order is beyond me. Rumeysa should immediately be brought back to Massachusetts, released, and allowed to return to complete her PhD program."

Nor has Ozturk been charged with a crime. Well maybe a thought crime. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said simply she “engaged in support of Hamas,” adding:

“A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated.”

That’s a judgment to be made in courts, according to the 5th and 14th Amendments that declared non-citizens, documented and undocumented, are entitled to due process, a reality affirmed by the Supreme Court more than 100 years ago.

“…aliens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law.”

No sentient American objects to the deportation of violent immigrants convicted of crimes. But people who engage in thoughts opposed by the regime? How about a South African billionaire who illegally overstayed his visa many years ago?

Is this what the blustery “border czar” meant when he said he would “bring hell” on Boston?

No sentient American should support shredding the nation’s founding documents in support of a campaign promise.