Surveillance video shows moment Tufts student is arrested by federal agents – CNN
March 28, 2025
Letter to US citizens: Student expulsions are an attack on all Americans’ freedom of speech
Make no mistake: The intended audience for the government’s arrest and expulsion of dissident foreign students is you and me – meaning all American citizens and our family members. (See the Washington Post’s “Judge orders that Georgetown researcher detained by ICE remain in the U.S.”)
And their intent is to make us afraid and shut us up.
The message is this. If you criticize Donald Trump or his Administration’s actions, they can and will stretch the limits of the law to hurt you. For example, if you protest Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza or systematic theft of land in the West Bank, a call from Israel’s embassy to the US government can trigger your detention and an attempt to kick you out of this country.
Have your documents ready in case federal agents come to your door. Or pluck you off the street. This video shows masked federal agents detaining a Turkish graduate student on a Somerville, MA sidewalk without a warrant to be sent to a prison across the country.
The Administration and DOGE have been sending the same message of fear to federal workers through mass firings and elimination of government agencies created by Congress. Not to mention attempts to intimidate judges.
You don’t think these actions affect you? What if you want to speak out on a different issue? If you criticize the Administration’s attack on the Social Security Administration, for example, will they try to find some way to go after your benefits? To repeat: have your documents ready.
This is how fascism happens. First, they come for the powerless. In time, they will come for you.
Karl Polzer is founder of the Center on Capital and Social Equity, which explores inequality and advocates for the ‘bottom 50%.” Two of his grandparents and his father immigrated to the United States in 1941 after escaping from Nazi Europe.