Transcript: Trump’s ICE Arrests Take Dark Turn after Ugly Rubio Threat
Sargent: And we know very little from the administration beyond this idea that she engaged in activities in support of Hamas—which could be just this op-ed for all we know. We don’t know yet. I want to stress that a number of other students are being targeted this way. There’s Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old student at Columbia who’s accused of attending demonstrations in support of Palestinians. She’s lived here since she was seven years old. There’s Mahmoud Khalil and Badar Khan Suri who were both legally present in the United States. Khalil was a legal permanent resident, Suri was here on a student visa. They both have wives who are U.S. citizens. The charges against all of them appear very thin, and a lot of this is blocked in court for now anyway. Shev, can you give us the rundown on these?
Dalal-Dheini: Yeah. We don’t know much. Again, we don’t have the evidence. The government hasn’t come out with allegations other than saying that they are in some way associated with Hamas. It seems like it’s more about their political statements, their participation in protest activity, or even their written opinions, which is similar to what happened with Ms. Ozturk. Overall, what we can discern from the facts is that these are all similar cases. These are all related. They’re all being targeted for their political beliefs. And beyond that, we don’t have any other evidence of what nefarious activity they may have been participating in.
Sargent: Right. We should stress that maybe the administration will produce proof of exceptional and extensive wrongdoing on the part of all these people, but they haven’t yet. They’ve been pressed over and over, and they still haven’t. By the way, as far as we can tell, the three we mentioned earlier—Yunseo Chung, Mahmoud Khalil, and Badar Khan Suri—are being targeted for removal under a statute that allows Rubio to revoke legal protections if he deems someone a foreign policy threat. We don’t know for sure yet, but the latest one, Ozturk, might also be getting targeted under the statute. Again, we don’t know for sure. But in all these cases, the evidence has been very thin that they constitute a threat. Can you talk about this provision that they seem to be using that empowers the secretary of state this way?