A delegation of Democratic members of Congress has travelled to Louisiana to meet with Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, who remain in custody at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres, calling their imprisonment a "national disgrace" and demanding their immediate release.
Ozturk, a Turkish national pursuing a PhD at Tufts University, and Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder and recent Columbia University graduate, were separately detained last month by federal agents as part of the Trump administration's growing crackdown on pro-Palestinian students. Neither of them has been charged with a crime.
The delegation — led by Representative Troy Carter of Louisiana — travelled to the ICE facility in Jena on Tuesday, where Khalil is being held, and then drove two hours south to Basile to visit Ozturk, according to CNN.
The group included Senator Ed Markey and Representatives Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.
At a press conference following their meetings with Khalil and Ozturk, Senator Markey said their detention constitutes a violation of both the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fifth Amendment right to due process.
"The Trump administration just feels it has the right to take people from across our country and put them into facilities like this. It's a national disgrace," he added.
'Authoritarian state'
Ozturk was arrested in March after being targeted by the pro-Israel website Canary Mission for co-authoring an op-ed that called on Tufts University to divest from Israel and recognise the "Palestinian genocide."
"She was kidnapped," said Pressley. "Taken from the incredible, close-knit, diverse community of Somerville."
"She was on her way to an iftar meal (during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan) to break her fast. She was hungry and denied food. She was thirsty and denied water. She was manhandled."
Khalil, a legal permanent resident married to a US citizen, was arrested over his participation in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University. Despite having no criminal charges against him, he was recently denied temporary release to attend the birth of his first child.
"This is not about enforcing the law — this is moving us toward an authoritarian state. I really worry that this administration is ushering in a new era of McCarthyism," said McGovern.
According to Markey, the Trump administration deliberately transferred both students to Louisiana, far from their homes and support networks in Massachusetts and New York, in order to place them under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — a venue widely seen as hostile to immigrant rights.
"They brought her 1,500 miles from Somerville, Massachusetts," said Markey, referring to Ozturk.
"Why did they do that? Because this is the single most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States of America. They are seeking to circumscribe the constitutional rights of Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil."
The lawmaker also raised the alarm over Ozturk's health.
"She has suffered multiple asthma attacks," Markey said. "They are not getting the medical attention which they need and deserve in this facility."
Pressley said Khalil, who fled Syria under the Assad regime, understands firsthand what political repression looks like.
"He knows what an authoritarian regime looks like — this is it," she said.
Hundreds of students have seen their visas revoked, with some saying they were targeted for everything from writing opinion articles to minor arrest records.
Missed son's birth
Detained pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil has missed the birth of his son after US authorities refused a temporary release, his wife said.
A graduate student at New York's Columbia University who was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza, Khalil was arrested by immigration authorities on March 8.
He was ordered deported even though he was a permanent US resident as a green card holder through his American citizen wife, Noor Abdalla.
Abdalla said on Monday that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denied a request to release Khalil temporarily for the birth of their child.
"This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud and our son suffer," she said in a statement.
"My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud's support for Palestinian freedom," she said.
She gave birth in New York. Khalil was transferred to the southern state of Louisiana in an apparent bid to find a judge sympathetic to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Trump's advisors have accused pro-Palestine protesters of promoting anti-Semitism and terrorism, charges that the activists deny.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy.
Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review.
Crackdown on students
Ozturk and Khalil's arrest is among a wider crackdown by the Trump administration on pro-Palestine activism, which mainly targets students.
A few days after Khalil's arrest, Trump's claim came due after another pro-Palestine student, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University, was arrested. His attorney said he was arrested because of the Palestinian identity of his wife.
After the arrest of Suri, authorities went after another pro-Palestine student, Momodou Taal, asking him to turn himself in.
On March 25, Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student, said she sued the Trump administration to stop her deportation from the US over her participation in a pro-Palestine protest last Spring.
Last week, authorities arrested Mohsen Mahdwai, a pro-Palestine activist and also a Columbia student, during his citizenship interview.
Other students, like Leqaa Kordia, Ranjani Srinivasan, and Alireza Doroudi have either been detained or self-deported.
