Your Key Constitutional Rights Are on Trial in Vermont
The Ozturk and Mahdawi cases are scheduled soon in the U.S. District Court of Vermont, but only you get to decide the verdict in the court of public opinion.
Unless something goes awry, both Rumeysa Ozturk and Mohsen Mahdawi will be in a Vermont courtroom in the next few weeks. Both will contest the government’s right to abduct and imprison people with no due process, because they exercised their constitutionally protected freedom of speech. Both prisoners ask for the ancient right of habeas corpus, a remedy for wrongful detention which prevented kings of England from throwing people in jail arbitrarily. The courts will decide whether freedom of speech and due process for everyone are still the law of the land.
But you and I will decide whether we, the people, will allow illegal arrests like these, or whether we will protest so loudly that the government dare not continue them. Why should we be concerned? What happened here? In the crush of so many outrages, it’s easy to lose track how these two cases involve the same core issues and yet are different in some important respects.
One contrast is that Mahdawi had a public role in organizing and protesting with a Columbia Palestinian students’ union until March 2024, when he withdrew because he advocated for Palestine as a safe place for Jews and Palestinians alike. Ozturk’s only “crime” is co-authoring a column in the Tufts University newspaper asking that the University acknowledge the genocide of more than 50,000 of the Palestinian people, and act accordingly. A State Department investigation before her arrest found no link at all to terrorism or antisemitism. Ozturk literally has been locked up only because of her written words, while Mahdawi was out on the streets exercising his right to free speech.
Can anyone really believe that a column in a university newspaper or demonstrations on a college campus could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” under the Immigration and Nationality Act?
Another contrast is that Mahdawi reacted to doxxing and false accusations by going underground, and was interviewed by CBS News the day before his arrest. He was prepared. Ozturk was fearful but continued her private life. When Mahdawi reported at the “honey trap” of a long-awaited citizenship interview, he was accompanied by allies who videoed him being taken away in handcuffs. He knew what he was walking into, and decided it was worth the risk because the interview might fulfill his dream: U.S. citizenship. He had the immediate attention of his lawyers, his neighbors, and the press.
The contrast with Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest and abduction could not be greater. The unsuspecting 30-year-old woman was walking in broad daylight to an interfaith center when six masked agents swooped down on her, grabbed her phone, handcuffed her, and marched her to an unmarked vehicle. For 24 nightmarish hours, Ozturk was whisked across state lines to New Hampshire and then Vermont where she was held overnight, and at dawn flown to Louisiana where she has been imprisoned ever since. Her statement says that she initially thought she was in the hands of killers, not police. Ozturk’s repeated requests to call her lawyer were refused.
While Mahdawi says he is “in good hands” in a Vermont prison, Ozturk has described a nightmarish situation at the detention center in Louisiana. Both in her written statement to the court, and in her conversations with the senator and representatives who visited her, she described 24 women and a mouse in a cell meant for 14. In sum, “unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane.” Ozturk has also been deprived of asthma medication and healthcare, and her hijab was removed without consent.
For all these differences, the cases have some similarities apart from involving the Palestinian cause. Both people have extensive support from their communities. The classic white-steepled church in Hartland, Vermont was packed with Mahdawi’s neighbors who wanted to help him any way they could. The District judge had never seen so many letters of support (almost 100). Ozturk is also highly regarded. In addition to letters from the President of Tufts University (whom her column criticized) and many colleagues and faculty, 27 national Jewish organizations supported her in an amicus brief. They of all people should understand the dangers of abducting people on the street because of what they say, with no due process.
In both landmark cases, judges specifically ordered that the prisoners not be moved from the state where they were arrested. Mahdawi is still in Vermont because the judge’s order was sought and granted immediately. The agents who abducted Ozturk hurtled across the Massachusetts border and crossed three state lines before 24 hours had passed. The Trump administration contends that Ozturk’s petition is invalid because it wasn’t filed in the right state—despite the fact that they prevented her from communicating until she was in Louisiana.
Both Ozturk and Mahdawi were the victims of doxxing, and false information spread through networks of extremists who targeted them. Ozturk’s column was her only public statement on the Palestinian issue, and the Trump administration had to stretch to find something amiss—that her words were in sympathy with a group that was later temporarily banned on campus. Far from being an antisemite as charged, Mahdawi was the leader of a protest where he led the whole group in chanting, “Shame on you” at a demonstrator who cursed the Jewish people.
The basis for the Trump administration’s action in both situations is vague and alarming. Can anyone really believe that a column in a university newspaper or demonstrations on a college campus could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” under the Immigration and Nationality Act?
Rumeysa Ozturk and Mohsen Mahdawi are petitioning for one of the oldest rights in our common law, because their rights under the U.S. Constitution—to speak and to have due process of law—have been violated in numerous ways. Whether you are in Vermont with its traditions of free speech and direct democracy, or in any of the other 49 states where the Bill of Rights is still alive, speak for them. Speak to your president who has jailed them and his officials, your senators and representative, every form of media you read or see, your state and local government. Stand by the road with a sign, and invite your neighbors to join you. Talk to all the organizations you belong to and connect with people, regardless of their political beliefs. Most people feel that no one in our country should be abducted and jailed arbitrarily.
The rights you save might be your own. In fact, they are—at least for now.
