Jewish groups and synagogues defend students held by ice

It is a group of progressive Jewish organizations and churches and come to the defense of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Muslim postgraduate student in Tufts, who faces expulsion after helping to write a critical essay on Israel.

The Coalition includes synagogues in places such as West Newton, Mass., San Francisco and the upper west side of New York, along with J-Street, a defense team in favor of Israel. On Thursday, they submitted a brief reference to the federal court in Burlington, VT, facing the tactic used by the government against Ms Ozturk in the name of combating anti -Semitism.

In the short short, the teams claimed that it should be released from the Louisiana Migration Detention Center where it was held for more than two weeks, after residents of migratory agents surrounded her and arrested her on a street near her home in Mass.

“The Jews came to America to escape generations of similar game,” says the short. “However, the images of Ozturk’s conception in the twenty -first century Massachusetts cause the oppressive tactics used by authoritarian regimes that many ancestors of AMICI members were left behind in Odessa, Kishinev and Warsaw.”

There have been reports of about 1,000 international students and scholars to universities across the country that have lost their legal status in mid -March, according to the Union of International Trainers.

Regardless, the visas have been formally revoked with little or no notice and without telling students what they could have done wrong. In some cases, students have committed legal violations, such as acceleration or driving while drunk, according to universities and lawyers watching the revocations. But some do not have. If students do not voluntarily leave, they are experiencing expulsion.

Trump’s administration defended the campaign, saying that it is recalling the visas of students who have broken the law, who have been involved in anti -Semitic harassment and violence, which are a threat to the interests of the United States foreign policy or the terrorists. Some Jewish activists have applauded the effort, reflecting the Trump administration mantra that “a view is a privilege, not a right”.

However, the Jewish Jewish groups expressed the challenges for repression, even when they approve the focus of Trump’s administration on anti -Semitism.

As the number of students targeted by Trump’s administration has increased, Jewish groups have said that while they may not like the views of pre-Palestinian students, they cannot approve the students to scan for vague reasons, without official charges against them.

Ms Ozturk’s detention followed the arrest two weeks earlier than Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of Columbia University, who was a representative of pre-Palestinian protesters.

A Louisiana immigration judge found on Friday that Trump’s administration could deport Mr Khalil. But he still disputes the case in a separate court. Responding to his case, the Boston chapter of the Hebrew School and Personnel concerned wrote an open letter entitled “Not in Name”, signed by nearly 3,000 teachers and staff members and students at universities in the United States.

“We are united, denouncing, without a doubt, anyone who invokes our name – and cynical allegations of anti -Semitism – to harass, release, capture or deport members of our campus communities,” the letter said.

Sara Coodin, Director of Academic Affairs for the US Jewish Commission, said some federal interventions, including Congress’s research on anti -Semitism on campus, had been “transformed” into university forced problems.

But he said that Ms. Ozturk’s case appeared to be “clear indifference by the federal government for human rights in the US territory to speak their minds”.

The only proof that emerged against her is an opinion essay that co-wrote that was critical of Israel.

“The idea that one can get off the road to something they wrote, something they believe, really affects everyone, and we all have to fight against it,” said Elaine Landes, a member of the Dorshei Tzedek church, a reconstruction of a synagogue at West Newton, Mass.

“All the impulse to combat anti -Semitism. For me, it feels like using another agenda and this is not going to keep our community safe,” he said. “We have to look at others.”

Ryan Bauer, a senior rabbi in the Emanu-El Church of San Francisco, another signatory, said he supported Ms. Ozturk, even though he disagreed with her essay. In this, he pushed the Tufts to end the economic ties with Israel and to recognize Israeli behavior in Gaza as a genocide.

“I don’t like her statements – I think it’s wrong,” Rabbi Bauer said. But, he added, he believes in freedom of speech and “the beauty of America is that we do not all agree with each other.”

He said he felt so strongly that Ms. Ozturk’s detention violated the Jewish values ​​he talked about in a recent sermon.

“When you see the floor falling under it, it is naive to believe that these cracks will not eventually reach our feet,” he said.

A federal judge in Vermont, where Mrs Ozturk spent a night in detail before being sent to Louisiana, is scheduled to hear her Habeas Corpus request for booking on Monday.

Dana Goldstein and Blister They contributed reports.