The Trump administration has outraged defenders of civil liberties with its campaign to abduct students off the street, and revoke the legal statuses of students holding visas and green cards for engaging in free speech the Trump administration doesn’t approve of. Yet, amid this growing chorus of dissent, one political leader has so far kept his distance from the controversy: New York Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres. Unlike many of his colleagues, Torres did not promptly issue any public statements about the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, or other international students targeted by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at the direction of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. These actions have not been accompanied by any evidence that the students committed a crime.
Democratic Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy called the arrests “chilling” and warned of a “massive slide away from democracy…