‘There is an effort to silence these students’

We are supposed to live in a country where everyone gets due process and everyone is entitled to a hearing.”

David Schultz

Audio

There is an effort to silence these students’_Jan Willms.mp3

Across the country, students on a student visa or the holder of a Green Card who protest against the killing of thousands in Gaza or sign their name to an op-ed against the war in the Middle East have found themselves picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and sent to remote parts of the country where they sit in detention waiting to be evicted from the United States.
In Minnesota, more than two dozen college students of primarily Middle Eastern ethnicity have been swept up by ICE officials.
“We are supposed to live in a country where everyone gets due process and everyone is entitled to a hearing,” said Dr. David Schultz, a professor of political science and legal studies at Hamline University.
He said the Trump administration is looking for courts that are more sympathetic to its requests, as more than one student has been sent to detention in Louisiana.
“I teach American politics, and if you read the Declaration of Independence, a part of it is about a statement of grievances against the King of England,” Schultz continued. “He has moved us to far distant places to put us on trial. This is part of what the Trump administration is doing.”
Schultz said the administration is trying to instill fear, committing high publicity actions and sending students to different courts and different detention centers, making it harder for them to mount a defense. They are also being sent away from their families and support systems.
“Their actions have created isolation for these detainees,” Schultz said.
He said a Green Card entitles its holder to all of the rights of Americans except the right to vote. So far, in many of these cases, the students and other detained immigrants have not been given due process.
In the case of Mahmoud Khalil (at the time of this interview), he has not been given a hearing to determine the legality of his being in this country, and no evidence against him has been presented, according to Schultz. Khalil is a graduate student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs who was a leading voice in protests against the war in Gaza.
Another student from Tufts University is allegedly being held because she was a co-author on an op ed citing the rights of Palestinians. “There is an effort to silence these students,” Schultz stated.
“Reactionary governments do not like academics, intellectuals or students,” he said.
The Monitor reached out to several local students, but none would talk even anonymously, citing safety concerns.
Schultz noted that the United States is supposed to be a home for poets, who can criticize, analyze, second-guess and dream about different ways of doing things. But he feels the Trump administration is using the classic control of hearts and minds so that individuals don’t generate ideas of criticism.
“Trump has lost the vote of the college-educated population,” Schultz said. “(Revoking visas and Green Cards) is his way of silencing these people.”
Schultz said the U.S. has a high rate of students from abroad. “Several great things have happened as a result of immigrants coming to study. They may stay here and become part of an intellectual powerhouse, such as Silicon Valley, research training in North Carolina, even the Twin Cities to some extent.”
Schultz said that even if the students don’t stay here but return to their home country, they bring American ideas with them. “What Trump doesn’t get is the power of American ideas in the military, economics, diplomacy and culture. If we go back 20 years, the U.S. had a huge lead in the world in the number of college degrees earned.”
By removing these students from abroad, the Trump administration is undermining America’s strength and its role in the world, according to Schultz.
He added that these detentions and revocations of credentials are indirect ways of banning Muslims.
Schultz said that he sees a showdown between Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts edging closer. “That’s a problem,” Schultz said. He warned about who may be potential targets of the administration. “Next it becomes U.S. citizens expressing their constitutionally protected free speech rights.”
Schultz has concerns about one group, then another losing its rights. “It’s the classic divide and conquer,” he said.
Schultz mentioned a book “It Can’t Happen Here” that was written in the 1930s by one of his favorite authors, Sinclair Lewis, who was from Sauk Centre, Minn. “The book is about a president with fascist leanings who gets elected,” Schultz said. “Are we at that point right now?”
Schultz said it should not be a surprise to anyone what the current administration is doing. “He is doing everything he said he was going to do.”
Schultz said that Trump was sort of conflicted in his first presidency. “He wanted to move a policy agenda, but operating the government was woefully mismanaged. The same contradiction applies now. To what extent will incompetency and lack of strategy undermine him? All the errors and mistakes are starting to pile up.”
Schultz said that Trump needs bureaucracy in place, but many in the Justice Department are leaving. “These are the skilled people who know how to argue in the Supreme Court,” Schultz said.