MINNEAPOLIS — A foreign student at the University of Minnesota was arrested by federal agents and hauled away without any explanation to university or local authorities or anyone in the house where he lived. Where the student was taken — and why — was unknown. The arrest followed a disturbing ambush two days earlier by masked agents on a street at Tufts University near Boston. That person was a Fulbright Scholar of Turkish citizenship who was studying for a doctoral degree. She was taken to a federal detention camp in Louisiana, apparently for immediate deportation without any due process. Such has been a Trump administration practice to rid the nation immigrants. There have been 32,800 alien arrests since Trump was inaugurated in January. Virtually all were dark-complicated individuals. Fewer than half had a court conviction, many on petty charges
Trump record
In the first two months of the Trump presidency, his agents have arrested a record 32,800 immigrants. The Homeland Security Department has issued these totals:
> 14,000 individuals with court convictions. No meaningful breakdown of the charges was offered: How many murders? How many parking tickets?
> 9,900 with pending court cases but not convicted. Again: No meaningful breakdown.
> 155 criminal gang members.
There has been no way to the Homeland Security authenticate data. The data suggest, however, that at least 6,000 arrests were for reasons not specified. Known is that immigration judges have excused some detainees as no threat whatsoever to public safety. Most detainees, however, are held secretly without legal counsel, no day in court, and no public accountability. It is known that at least 242 detainees have been sent to a hellhole prison in El Salvador. The 40,000-inmate facility known for brutal treatment of prisoners, operated by autocratic strongman Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally. A Trump spokesperson said all were gang members but refused to release a list of names or the evidence.
A precursor arrest at Tufts?
Rumeysa Ozturk was walking to meet up with friends to celebrate the end of the Ramadan. Suddenly Trump immigration agents descended on her unannounced, manhandled her, cuffed her, and took her away. Unbeknown to the agents, the arrest was videotaped: a plainclothes man in a hoodie and hat approached her and waved. “Hey, ma’am,” he said. Ozturk appeared confused and tried to walk around the man, but then he blocked her, grabbed her hands and handcuffed her. Ozturk screamed in confusion: “What’s going on?” The agent showed no badge. He had no uniform. Additional agents swarmed Ozturk. A female law agent said, “OK, it’s fine.” The male agent who initially approached her said, “OK, we’re the police. Relax.” Other agents keep repeating: “We are the police” as they dragged Ozurk to an unmarked black van.
It’s all on videotape
The person taking the video tried to intervene. “Is this a kidnapping? Can I see some faces here? How do I know this is the police?” One agent, in dark glasses quickly pulled a mask over his nose. The videographer later told news interviewer: “It’s clear that you cover your face when you’re doing immoral actions.” It was later determined that Ozturk had been taken immediately to the detention camp operated by the federal deportment agency 1,800 miles away in Basile, Louisiana. There was no notification of Tufts authorities or local police or friends. Had it not been for a witness who happened to video the arrest, nobody would know where Ozturk had disappeared.
Tufts student ambushed. A5 30 p.m. on quiet aresidential street near Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
Student’s profile
Ozturk is a student in a doctoral program for child study and human development. She has a master’s degree from Columbia University. As near as anybody can figure out, she was on a Trump watchlist for co-authoring an essay in the Tufts student newspaper, The essay criticized the university’s response to demands that it “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”