Congressional Democrats travel to Louisiana to meet with Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk
WASHINGTON – A group of congressional Democrats traveled to Louisiana on April 23 to visit Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities where Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk have been held custody.
Khalil was detained in March by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after he helped lead pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University. He was accused of engaging in activities aligned with Hamas. Ozturk, an international graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was detained the same month after she cowrote a pro-Palestinian opinion piece. Ozturk was in the United States on a F-1 visa, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in March that her visa had been revoked.
The congressional delegation included Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana, Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
Khalil is being held in a facility in the town of Jena, while Ozturk is being detained in the town of Basile.
In a news conference after the visit, the Democrats said they met with Khalil and Ozturk and demanded their release, arguing that neither of them committed crimes.
“We have protections under the Constitution that allows us to speak out from our communications with these individuals,” Carter said in the news conference. “They're frightened. They're concerned. They want to go home.”
Khalil's wife Noor Abdalla had given birth to their first child on April 21, but he was denied temporary release to attend the birth.
“They're happy to see that members of Congress are here to listen, to take good notes, to go back to Washington, to work with local communities and to work with our federal government to ensure that due process is granted,” he added.
Markey argued that detainees are not getting the medical attention they need at the facilities, noting that Ozturk had suffered multiple asthma attacks.
"Rumeysa continues to have a spirit. She continues to have a sense of rights that fuels her very being, and we were just privileged to be with her and some of the other prisoners that are being detained," Markey said.
He alleged that she was being detained in violation of the First Amendment's right to free speech and the Fifth Amendment's right of due process.
“We're going to make sure that the Trump administration is made accountable for what they are doing,” he added.
Their visit comes shortly after four House Democrats traveled to El Salvador to advocate for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man arrested in Maryland and wrongly deported to the Central American country. Last week, Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador.