They're Testing Us

News and video of government agents kidnapping Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk off the sidewalk in Somerville, Mass., on Tuesday evening is the latest and most startling (appalling? sickening?) of many actions by our fascist-wannabe federal government.


The illegal apprehension and detention of Columbia University M.A.-holder and permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil has gotten a lot of attention, as has the unauthorized airplane deportation of supposed gang members stolen to El Salvador, including approved refugees, gay makeup artists, and women the government didn't realize were women.

Less noticed are the Hmong-American Milwaukee woman deported to Laos. Ma Yang has lived all but a few months of her 37 years in the U.S. and has never been in Laos before. She has five U.S. citizen children, a U.S. citizen partner, and co-owns a home. She does not speak Lao and has no insulin for her diabetes.

Or this story that I saw shared on Facebook. Who know how many situations like this are happening:

This morning I spoke to a bank employee in the small town (pop. 2400) in West Texas where my mom grew up. My mom still has a safe deposit box there and they needed a new form of payment since all my mom's accounts are closed. $30 for a whole year, btw. Anyway, I've known this woman for years, and she knew my mom.

I asked her "so how are things going in [name of town]?" expecting the standard response, which is invariably "we're hoping for rain!"

Instead she told me that a few days ago, swarms of immigration people showed up, swept through the town and took dozens of people away. ICE were just walking through neighborhoods, knocking on random doors, entering businesses and aggressively challenging people.

Those that couldn't immediately produce proof of citizenship or proof of legal residency were taken away, including those that had immigration hearings scheduled at the nearest immigration court, 1 hour away.

Many of them were her friends and family that had grown up and lived peacefully in [the town] for decades. Some of them were born there. *Some of them were born there.*

Since they - according to DHS - "don't deserve" due process, for many of them there will never be afforded a hearing to prove their citizenship status; many will be warehoused in a for-profit prison then shipped to a prison in a random central American country that has no relation to their national heritage, culture or language.

We had never discussed any of this before, and when she figured out that I am "safe" she told me in a very soft voice "And you know I am Mexicana so it is a very scary time..." I about lost it.

She's an American citizen. But there was nothing I could say to reassure her that wouldn't be a lie.

Read those last two sentences again.

Those of you who have convinced yourself that this is all fake or the news media lying, you're doing precisely what citizens in Nazi Germany were doing in the buildup to the Holocaust.

Defector wrote up Ozturk's kidnapping under the headline It Is What It Looks Like. Six people, mostly dressed in black, all but one wearing a mask, appear from nowhere to take her to an unmarked vehicle. They wrote:

Whereas the footage of Khalil's arrest, shot from the perspective of his pregnant wife, begins after he has already been put in handcuffs, this clip provides a fuller picture of what ICE agents actually do. There are differences that tell a story about what direction this is all going: A student who signed her name to an op-ed is now as much a target as the outspoken public activist; the condescending arresting officer wearing an Avengers t-shirt has given way to masked agents executing a choreographed snatch and grab.

They end with this:

Eventually, one last court will decide if this is a country that allows for political disappearances, and then the administration will decide if this is a country that still heeds the courts.... A woman who committed no crime was walking down the sidewalk in America. Masked plainclothes officers ambushed her from multiple directions. She screamed and recoiled as they grabbed at her wrists. She was handcuffed and taken away.

It can be hard to describe or visualize exactly what kind of country you want to live in, but it is not so hard to recognize the one you don't. (emphasis added)

Rolling Stone reporter Asawin Suebsaeng, @swin24.bsky.social on BlueSky, who has been doing great reporting on our hell-in-a-handbasket situation, put it this way:

There were moments when I was asking myself: why does the trump administration keep doing this to more sympathetic cases, why aren’t they finding idiot students who do think Hamas is good and instead people who say mostly “Palestinians are human beings” then I realized and said to myself: U idiot……that’s the point

 They're testing us to see if we — and any of our institutions — will stand up against them.