In that same vein, I'd like to talk a little more about the regime's pattern of identifying the "criminal" they want to target, before determining what "crime" they're being charged with, in regards to its targeting of foreign students who expressed anti-genocide sentiments while legally studying in the United States. Nowhere is the authoritarian inversion of the process of legal enforcement more apparent than in the abduction, detainment, and attempted deportation of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student targeted by the regime for writing an op-ed calling for the school to divest from its financial relationships with companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel, as it commits a genocide in Gaza.
What makes Öztürk's case so revealing is that we have access to a State Department memo that shows Foggy Bottom knew the regime had no case against her, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio was advised to use his (presumed) authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to accomplish the desired goal - attempting to deport Öztürk for her completely legal exercise of free speech rights to criticize her school and its support for a genocide.
State Department Found No Evidence of DHS’s Reasons for Abducting Tufts Student
"The Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing a State Department memo, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had not provided any evidence of Öztürk engaging in activity labelled antisemitic or “terrorist” supporting. Additionally, searches of government databases did not turn up any evidence of Öztürk participating in terrorism-related activity.
As a result, Secretary of State Marco Rubio lacked grounds to revoke her visa under certain immigration provisions allowing him to do so. Instead, the department recommended a different authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act that legal experts cited by the Post say allow Rubio to revoke immigration status that does not require “a rationale and explanation and evidence.”
The agency recommended a “silent” revocation of Öztürk’s visa as part of that authority, the memo reportedly says, meaning that the administration would not notify her of the action.
Days later, immigration agents “disappeared” Öztürk, with footage showing that they swarmed her on the street outside of her home and forced her into an unmarked car."
Folks, this is literally the smoking gun that proves what anyone who isn't a disingenuous apologist already knows in their heart; the Trump regime is transforming the law into a weapon to punish protestors, intimidate dissidents, and suppress the free speech of folks who oppose Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. These fascist jackanapes are literally so incompetent that their own memos prove they're inverting the legal process to target portions of their political opposition in a very visible type of fascist ideological policing. Anyone still arguing that this isn't a fascist government while the Trump regime itself is more or less shouting "yes we're doing fascism" in its internal memos, is either a fool, or thinks you are.
