\n<\/p>\n
The video was shocking<\/span>, and devoid of context, it appeared Tufts University doctoral student R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk was abducted off the street by masked men and hauled to a waiting van. In what turned out to be an immigration operation, the Trump administration arrested \u00d6zt\u00fcrk in March 2025, jailed her in horrific conditions<\/a> for 45 days, and sought to expel her from the country, claiming she supported terrorism, Hamas, antisemitism, or whatever jumbled combination of the three they lazily regurgitate whenever they target pro-Palestine speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n We now know that the sole basis for \u00d6zt\u00fcrk\u2019s ordeal was an op-ed she co-authored in the Tufts Daily<\/a> where she and three colleagues echoed opinions shared by millions of Americans about Israel\u2019s war on Gaza. It didn\u2019t mention Hamas, terrorism, or Jewish people. But it landed \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, who was enrolled on an F-1 student visa, on the website of Canary Mission<\/a>, a site that maintains a blacklist of activists, writers, and ordinary people who have voiced pro-Palestine views. The government has used the site to find people to deport for their constitutionally protected speech, according to court transcripts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This week, a judge finally dismissed the deportation case against \u00d6zt\u00fcrk (although the government can still challenge<\/a> that decision if it has the nerve to do so). This happened not because the legal system worked but because of the actions of courageous whistleblowers, whose disclosures discredited the administration\u2019s preposterous claims.<\/p>\n In April 2025, the Washington Post reported on leaked State Department memos<\/a> from days before \u00d6zt\u00fcrk\u2019s arrest. According to the Post, the first memo stated the administration \u201chad not produced any evidence\u201d linking \u00d6zt\u00fcrk to terrorist organizations or antisemitic activities. A second memo recommended revoking her visa anyway on the grounds that she \u201cengaged in anti-Israel activism in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israelis on October 7, 2023\u201d by co-bylining the op-ed. These memos made clear that the administration deliberately decided to send masked ICE agents to abduct \u00d6zt\u00fcrk near her Somerville, Massachusetts, apartment despite knowing full well it had no legitimate basis for its actions.<\/p>\n These were the early days of masked government goons kidnapping people off American streets, so the arrest got significant media attention<\/a>. In the face of intense scrutiny, the administration continued to knowingly mislead the public, with the Department of Homeland Security claiming<\/a> \u00d6zt\u00fcrk \u201cengaged in activities in support of Hamas\u201d \u2014 without stating what those actions were. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also led the smear campaign against \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, suggesting without evidence<\/a> that she had been involved in activities \u201clike vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus\u201d on campus, which he claimed would have \u201cpotentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The government can\u2019t rely on operational security to cover up its own transgressions, and if revealing illegality impedes illegality, it\u2019s all the better.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Freedom of the Press Foundation, where I work, filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with the State Department for the memos. The agency ignored us, forcing us to file a lawsuit. The agency continues to waste taxpayer dollars to stonewall us<\/a>, even after a separate lawsuit<\/a> won the release of one of the documents we requested.\u00a0<\/p>\n The State Department claims transparency would violate unspecified \u201cprivacy interests,\u201d presumably of the same person they quite publicly abducted, crammed into a very not-private jail cell, and slandered as a supporter of terrorism to the national media. The government has also claimed releasing the records would reveal law enforcement and investigative techniques and procedures. This reasoning is totally bunk: For one, the government publicly brags<\/a> about its anti-speech immigration enforcement techniques \u2014 if you can call plucking people listed on a disreputable doxxing website a technique. And two, we\u2019re talking about procedures that result in completely innocent people being incarcerated over op-eds, which renders them ineffectual, unconstitutional, and illegal. The government can\u2019t rely on operational security to cover up its own transgressions, and if revealing illegality impedes illegality, it\u2019s all the better.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Transparency doesn\u2019t just hinder the unconstitutional targeting of immigrants \u2014 it makes it harder for the government to trample on the rest of our rights. This administration doesn\u2019t value the First Amendment rights of citizens any more than those of noncitizens; immigrants are just the low-hanging fruit.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the government ignores and abuses laws designed to ensure transparency, it\u2019s no wonder that people of conscience decide to leak news to the press and public. This is why, at the same time it\u2019s persecuting the press and looking to expand ICE abuses, the government is demonizing whistleblowers. The Trump administration is certainly not the first <\/a>to claim leaks are uniquely dangerous, but the escalation has been dramatic. Administration officials from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have all called leakers national security threats<\/a>. Their position \u2014 which they\u2019ve also adopted in their attack on the right to film law enforcement<\/a> \u2014 is that they\u2019re taking away our right to know for our own good.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s been proven false every time, including when Bondi reversed a Biden-era policy protecting journalist-source confidentiality, blamed leakers<\/a> for the change, and said whistleblowers \u201cundermine President Trump\u2019s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.\u201d Bondi also called leaks \u201cillegal and wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She focused her feigned outrage on the New York Times<\/a> and the Washington Post<\/a> reporting an intelligence community memo that completely undercut the Trump administration\u2019s legal rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans \u2014 reporting that another one of our FOIAs corroborated<\/a>. The policy change came the same month the Post reported on the leaked \u00d6zt\u00fcrk memos.\u00a0<\/p>\n The leaks didn\u2019t stop last April, despite Bondi\u2019s efforts. As FPF\u2019s Caitlin Vogus noted<\/a>, in recent months, leaks about immigration enforcement have revealed everything from ICE\u2019s alarming instruction that officers can enter homes without a warrant signed by a judge to its taking a page out of Canary Mission\u2019s book to label people exercising their well-established right to protest the administration\u2019s immigration enforcement as \u201cdomestic terrorists.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n