John,

The footage is chilling: Tufts University and Fulbright student Rümeysa Öztürk was ambushed and abducted by masked ICE agents. In the video, you can hear her desperate pleas. 

Her crime? Co-authoring an opinion piece in the university’s newspaper last year challenging Tufts’ response to the pro-Palestinian student movement. Now her visa has been revoked and she's facing deportation. 

We are witnessing the US rapidly spiral into an authoritarian state.

If we raise an outcry right away demanding an end to this Gestapo-like crackdown, we can stop more innocent people from being doxxed, threatened, and abducted. 

Tell US universities and local authorities: protect your students against unjust abductions, and heed the call to divest from companies fueling Israel’s genocide. 

Rümeysa isn’t the first and she won’t be the last student protester to be disappeared by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security claims she was “engaged in activities in support of Hamas” but offered no further details or proof of this allegation.

These arrests aren’t about national security. This is an attempt to spread fear and prevent students from protesting a genocide that the US is fueling. 

If we don’t raise an overwhelming outcry, and do it fast, this type of tyrannical crackdown will become normalized, and who’s to say what could come next. More than ever, we need everyone everywhere demanding the release of the abducted students and an end the repression against pro-Palestine / anti-genocide protesters. 

Tell US universities and local authorities: protect your students against unjust abductions, and heed the call to divest from companies fueling Israel’s genocide.