It is the stuff of nightmares. Like a newsreel of a street corner in Germany, as the Nazis were taking over.

A woman walks down the street. Suddenly, a man in street clothes blocks her path. She tries to get around him as he grabs at her. Five more people wearing facemasks surround her. Clearly scared, the woman says she will call the police. “We ARE the police,” says the man accosting her, as he wrestles her phone out of her hands. Off-camera, a man shouts, “Then why are you hiding your faces?”

Except that the street wasn’t in Germany, it was just outside of Boston. And the time wasn’t 90 years ago—it was last week, in a time when each new day seems to bring a further step into a deeper hell.

Disappeared!

The woman in the video has a name and a life. She is Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old Turkish woman, in the U.S. on a student visa. She is a doctoral candidate in the Child Study and Human Development Department at Tufts University. At 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25, she left her home in Somerville, a residential neighborhood near Boston, on her way to join friends for dinner after a day of fasting for Ramadan.¹

Rümeysa’s assailants were not actually “police” nor were they ordinary criminal thugs. They were “legitimate” criminal thugs: agents of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the federal agency that is spearheading the fascist drive to deport millions of immigrants. 

And so, in under two minutes Rümeysa’s phone and bag were taken, and she was handcuffed, forced into a car, and disappeared. “Disappeared” not just from her street but from all contact with her friends, colleagues and her lawyer. Disappeared so completely that her attorneys and friends began frantically calling local hospitals searching for her. Disappeared so completely that when a representative of the Turkish consulate traveled to a Massachusetts ICE office, he too was denied any information!

Hijacked to Hell 

After learning of Rümeysa’s abduction, her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, went into federal court and asked for—and received—an order prohibiting ICE from moving Rümeysa out of Massachusetts. Meanwhile, according to her legal team, Rümeysa was being driven from one Massachusetts ICE office to another. Then on Wednesday, she was flown to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, apparently in direct violation of Tuesday’s court order.² Her lawyers did not have any contact with her until late Wednesday afternoon—nearly 24 hours after she was kidnapped! During that time Rümeysa suffered an asthma attack, and had no access to her asthma medication. 

At this writing (five days after her abduction), Rümeysa Öztürk is being held at the ICE Detention Center in Basile, Louisiana, a particularly hellish corner of ICE’s Louisiana network of “Black Hole” prisons. (See accompanying article: ICE’s Network of “Black Hole” Detention Centers.) And as of now she is scheduled to have her first deportation hearing on April 7, more than a thousand miles from her legal team, unwell and alone. (Her attorneys are trying to get her brought back to Massachusetts. And on Friday a federal judge issued an order temporarily prohibiting her deportation. Whether ICE will respect federal court orders remains an open question.) 

What Is Happening—and Why?

First and foremost, this has to be understood as part of a rapidly escalating MAGA-fascist drive to paralyze, terrorize, corrupt or destroy any movement, institution, group, or individual that is even a potential obstacle to their all-out domination of society. Law firms, the judicial system, even Republicans that don’t completely toe the fascist line are being targeted. Universities are a major target—perhaps the only place in society where critical thinking is at least supposed to be encouraged. And space for dissent and protest is also supposed to be allowed.³

Be clear: this regime is moving as rapidly as they can to clear the ground for a full-out fascist transformation of every sphere of society.

Last year’s eruption of courageous and determined campus protests against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza has been a real problem for U.S. imperialism. It ripped the mask off of Israel's pose as “tiny democracy under attack." And in many cases, this protest exposed Israel's role as a military outpost for U.S. imperialism. This provoked fierce debate—not only on campuses, but in society broadly—in which people were compelled to examine and defend their positions with facts and reason.

In all this, it has been a concentration of everything that the fascists hate and fear about the universities. And crushing this movement—in which international students have played an important role—is completely bound up with, and right now is the leading edge of, the Nazification of the universities as a whole. 

Just think about it: Rümeysa Öztürk has not been accused—much less charged or convicted—of any actual crime. Her “crime” in the eyes of the Trump regime is that she co-authored an op-ed published in her school’s newspaper that called on the University to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and to end any investments in companies that are tied to Israel. 

That was reason enough for the massive power of the state to be brought against her, for her to be hurled into the abyss of ICE’s dungeons, accused of being an “anti-Semite,”⁴ a “lunatic” and a “terrorist sympathizer.” 

Note the deliberately cruel and lawless way this was done. The State Department could have sent her a notice that her student visa was being revoked. This would have given her a chance to either appeal this or to leave the country in an ordinary and orderly way. Instead, they chose to ambush her on the street and throw her into their “detention” system. Their purpose was to terrorize others. As Rümeysa’s attorneys put it: 

Rümeysa’s arrest and detention are not a necessary or usual consequence of the revocation of a visa. But like the revocation of her visa, her arrest and detention are designed to silence her, punish her for her speech, and ensure that other students will be chilled from expressing pro-Palestinian viewpoints. Her continued detention is therefore unlawful.

And Rümeysa Öztürk’s kidnapping is not a one-off. Counting Rümeysa, at least nine foreign-born people who are legally in the U.S.—either with valid student visas or with green cards (permanent U.S. residence but without citizenship)—have been targeted for deportation. And many of them have also been seized in unnecessarily cruel ways—for instance, Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil was ambushed in student housing, and dragged off in front of his 8-months-pregnant wife.⁵ And Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State, has said that there are at least 300 other students they intend to deport.

A Wild Attack on Basic Rights of All

Even beyond attacking the universities and the movement against the genocide of Palestinians, there are broader threats in how these attacks are coming down.

First, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that everyone residing in the U.S.—regardless of their citizenship status—is entitled to freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc., and to due process (meaning you cannot be deprived of life or liberty by the government except under established law and without a chance to plead your case in court). 

But the actions of the Trump regime in these cases are based on the position that participation in protests, writing op-eds, or other acts of dissent are themselves justification for punishment (in this case, the punishment being entombment—buried alive—in ICE prisons, followed by deportation), even though no laws were in any way violated. The regime insists that protest and dissent endanger “national security.” And they further argue that since “national security” is the responsibility of the President, no court can question or challenge any decision, once he has invoked “national security” as his reason. No one can even insist that he explain in what way “national security” is at stake.

So, boom, just like that, all these rights that are supposedly “guaranteed” are gone. Stripped away first from non-citizens. But follow the logic: where does this end? 

Broad and Righteous Outrage—and the Need for a Further Leap

The kidnapping of Rümeysa Öztürk immediately provoked broad and righteous anger. 

On Tufts campus, pro-Palestinian and other activist groups called for a protest rally on Wednesday afternoon. A faculty member reports coming out of class and seeing “students streaming toward” the rally site, “carrying homemade signs,” and that “the mood was grim.” At least 2,000 people ended up packing the park, chanting “Free Rumeysa Ozturk now,” as speaker after speaker demanded her release. 

Several activists spoke, as did several local political officials. The Medford City Council president said, “The fact that bullies and tyrants and fascists think that they can come here and take our neighbors is abhorrent.” A congresswoman said, “It’s incumbent upon us to fight to get her back. Every day, hour, minute that she is in detention is a minute too long.” 

People in attendance from Tufts and surrounding areas spoke to journalists about why they had come out, their comments infused with urgency and determination. A woman told The Tufts Daily: “Everyone likes to say what they would have done during a historical atrocity, or during times of fascism, and I think it’s important to recognize the signs of when it’s happening.” A student from Northeastern University said: “being a student myself and seeing people literally get dragged off their campuses for free speech and speaking up for what they believe in, is just really appalling.” Another attendee said, “The fact that someone can just be disappeared into the abyss for voicing an idea is absolutely horrifying.”

That same evening, hundreds of people went to Somerville City Hall and attempted to get into the city council meeting, but were kept out by police. The managing board of The Daily Tufts issued a defense of Rümeysa’s free speech rights and their own obligation to continue to platform views that the authorities oppose. 

Twenty-five members of the Tufts class of 1989 signed an open letter responding to the kidnapping: “We do not choose the times in which we live, but we do choose how we act in those times. Now is the moment for Tufts to stand firm in defense of academic freedom, human rights and the First Amendment principles that form the bedrock of intellectual life.” 

A petition condemned the University’s silent complicity with the kidnapping and challenged administrators to do better: “Tufts has an opportunity to take a principled and historic stance against this authoritarian crackdown on student free speech in general, speech regarding Palestine in particular, and on the rights of non-citizens in the United States as a whole.” By Friday morning, over 2,600 people had signed. 

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley issued a statement calling the arrest “a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released.” And 34 Congresspeople sent a letter to top Trump officials saying the arrest was “disturbing” and “deeply troubling” and calling for “Ozturk’s release and the restoration of her visa.”

Even the site of the attack has become a symbol of resistance, with ribbons and flowers and a sign reading “ICE kidnapped our neighbor.”

The widespread protest of Rümeysa’s abduction has been important and inspiring—and this kind of mass resistance must spread. At the same time, we will not defeat this fascism waging one struggle at a time but need to link every outrage to what's needed to drive this fascist regime from power. 

The revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) spoke to what's needed in a new social media message. In reference to the upcoming April 5 demonstration but with larger application, BA said: 

It is a very good thing that people are mobilizing in large numbers to express their outrage at the heartless and lawless actions of the Trump regime.

At the same time: It is crucial to have a clear understanding of what the Trump regime actually is, where it is rapidly taking things, why it is urgently necessary to defeat this regime before it is too late—and what is the way that could be done.

And a few paragraphs later, BA concludes:

All the many different streams of protest need to be joined together, and rapidly draw in many, many more—to become a massive wave of millions and millions demanding, insisting, determined to make this demand a reality: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go!