Bünyamin Tekin
In late March, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was walking along a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, when masked, plainclothes officers grabbed her without warning. They handcuffed her and put her into detention. She remains there, reportedly deprived of basic needs and in unsanitary conditions triggering her asthma. Her only act was co-writing a student newspaper op-ed, published a year earlier, criticizing Tufts University’s response to anti-genocide protests against Israel’s war on Gaza and calling for divestment.
There was no protest, no organizing. No criminal charges. Just one op-ed.
A report published by The Washington Post earlier on Monday revealed that a US State Department memo found no evidence linking Öztürk to antisemitism or support for terrorism, despite claims by the administration of President Donald Trump. The Department of Homeland Security had recommended Öztürk’s visa revocation based on her co-authorship of the op-ed.
According to The Post, the State Department ultimately used a broad discretionary authority requiring no evidence to approve her visa cancellation. Öztürk was detained on March 25 by masked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents without prior notice of the revocation.
The Post noted that the internal memo was written days before her detention and concluded she posed no national security threat. Her case has sparked widespread criticism, with the newspaper even quoting pro-Israel student groups defending her right to free speech.
‘A deliberate campaign of repression’
The revocation of Öztürk’s visa is part of an expanding crackdown on international students and scholars by the Trump administration, including hundreds of visa revocation cases. She was taken into custody on March 25.
Speaking to Turkish Minute, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), calls what’s happening in the US today “a deliberate campaign of repression, fear, intimidation — some would say really an environment of terrorism.”
“These are political acts being directed, in some cases violent acts being directed against the civilian population, in this case the population in the United States, for their political beliefs and their political opinions. So it’s also political persecution,” Whitson says.
“The goal here is not to deport one student or another student who may or may not have said something. The goal here is to quash criticism of Israel.”
According to Whitson, the Trump administration’s campaign is a widespread effort to chill all speech related to Palestinian rights.
“The goal here is to create a climate of fear among every American so that the logic is that if they can do this to an immigrant, if they can do this to a foreign student visa holder, then, you know, clearly the message is that nobody should talk this way,” Whitson said.
“People in Turkey, people in the Middle East, people in Russia, people in China, they understand what’s happening in the United States very, very clearly because they have lived in an environment of political repression where there are some things you may not talk about,” Whitson stated.
“And if you dare to talk about them, you will end up in prison. You will end up punished in every way imaginable. But in the US, people are not used to this. So it is also very much part of the shock and awe approach.”
Repression at home, genocide abroad
The crackdown in the US comes amid an international outcry over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Since October 2023 over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to health authorities in the besieged enclave. Hospitals have been bombed. Aid convoys attacked. Civilians buried under rubble.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch now classify Israel’s actions as genocide. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. A separate genocide case brought by South Africa is underway at the International Court of Justice.
And yet, Washington continues to back Israel — militarily, diplomatically and financially. That support has become so ironclad that even modest criticism is now seen as a threat.
The repression starts with Palestine
“This is starting about Palestine, and the main goal is to silence people about Palestine,” Whitson said.
“But it’s not going to end with [that]. Once they have penetrated the sanctity of the university, once they have violated the sanctity of our free speech rights enshrined in the Constitution, then no one’s speech is safe, and they will continue to silence other speech.”
She describes a climate where even associations — such as being friends with someone active in Palestinian advocacy — are grounds for punishment.
The visa cancellations and the ICE detentions are “accompanied by efforts to sanction, expel students, get people fired from jobs, make it impossible for people to get jobs, you know, just raising the costs, raising the punishments for talking about Palestine or even associating with people who talk about Palestine,” Whitson says.
And she says the repression isn’t confined to campuses. DAWN is tracking how disciplinary records from universities are being demanded by government officials. Columbia University, for example, was asked to turn over internal student conduct files.
“That is a deliberate threat against all of the students of Columbia University because these records would reveal the names of people involved in a group, the names of people’s friends. Who did you organize with? When did you plan this? Who did you talk to?”
At the root of all of this, Whitson argues, is corruption — particularly the capture of US foreign policy by powerful interest groups.
“US foreign policy is the least democratic of all policies, of all the policies that the US government works on. You know, whether it’s the environment or the economy or education or health or whatever, those have a lot of democratic input. The American public is very engaged. They have their very own interests in how the US government handles these policies. It directly affects them. But on foreign policy, Americans are largely checked out,” according to Whitson.
Whitson says American foreign policy is dominated by lobbying interests rather than public input. She explains that the weapons industry plays a central role, profiting from US support for authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. Even when military aid is offered as a gift, such as in the case of Israel, companies like Raytheon still benefit because the US government pays the bill.
Whitson adds that foreign governments, especially Israel, exert strong influence through wealthy US-based supporters who lobby on their behalf. She notes that Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now directly lobbying and infiltrating US policymaking.
“Even the Democratic Party chose to lose the election rather than lose its pro-Israel donors, choosing to stay on Israel’s side, even though the vast majority of Democratic voters did not want these policies in support of Israel,” she says.
“But the Trump administration does it more nakedly, more openly, less apologetically, less secretly.”
Whitson says that these interest groups are actively undermining and corrupting American democracy. She points to growing public disillusionment as voters watch their elected officials being influenced by money from groups like AIPAC and foreign governments such as Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. She notes that some of this influence operates within legal boundaries, while some does not. Whitson says her organization is fighting to preserve democracy from a foreign policy system that is essentially up for sale.
Green cards downgraded, citizenship on the line
Rümeysa Öztürk is not alone.
The crackdown started to make headlines when Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident, was targeted under an obscure Cold War-era law for allegedly harming US foreign policy.
Khalil was arrested by ICE agents on March 8, 2025, in New York City. Despite having a green card, he faces deportation under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which allows removal if a non-citizen’s presence is deemed detrimental to US foreign policy interests. Khalil has not been charged with any crime. His arrest has drawn criticism from civil rights organizations and legal experts, who argue that it infringes on First Amendment protections.
Meanwhile, Öztürk remains detained at a federal facility in Louisiana as a Vermont district court hears arguments over her case.
A Justice Department lawyer argued that only the immigration court has jurisdiction, while Judge William Sessions questioned whether constitutional violations in her arrest fall under his purview. Sessions warned that if he finds her detention unconstitutional but the government refuses to release her, it could trigger a “constitutional crisis.”
“The assumption used to be, once you have a green card, you’re safe,” Whitson says. “Now that protection is gone.”
Whitson says most Americans do not grasp how attacks on visa holders, green card holders and potentially naturalized citizens threaten the core of American democracy.
‘Why is the US hurting itself?’
For Whitson, the core question is not just why dissent is being punished — but why so much is being sacrificed to protect Israel from criticism.
“How is it possible that the United States is hurting itself, hurting its own country, hurting its own freedoms to protect a tiny genocidal regime thousands of miles away?” she quoted her interlocutors as asking around the globe.
“The puzzle is answerable if you start with the understanding that the American government, American policy makers, are corrupted. They are corrupt,” Whitson asserted.
“They are not acting in the interests of the American people. They are not acting in the interests of the American nation. They are acting in the interests of of those who are funding their political party, funding their political campaigns, funding them individually to cater to Israel’s interests.”
Whitson warns that while many hope the judiciary will act as a safeguard, there are growing signs that the Trump administration may attempt to undermine or ignore judicial authority.
Citing rhetoric like Elon Musk’s comments questioning whether judges should have power over the president, Whitson says such ideas directly threaten the US system of checks and balances.
“They are dismantling the entire system of the American government … primarily to protect Israel from criticism,” she says.
“We take it for granted that American democracy will work on autopilot, that we don’t have to do anything,” she says.
Whitson argues that many citizens expect to live in a free society without engaging in the work required to sustain it. She stresses that this complacency is misplaced and that democracy demands active participation.
“Every citizen has to fight for their democracy, has to work for their democracy, has to be involved in their democracy,” she says.
Whitson outlines what she calls the “Three Cs” threatening American democracy: complacency, cowardice and corruption. She says Americans must be willing to “put our own skin in the game” to defend their rights and institutions.
Corruption, she warns, is eating away at the country, particularly through foreign policy that has fueled mass atrocities in Gaza.
“The only reason this country is better than others is our freedom of speech,” she says, and that that, too, is now under threat.