We, the residents of Medford, MA, are deeply alarmed by the recent arrest and disappearance of Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University.

We urge Mayor Lungo-Koehn to immediately issue a statement condemning these actions and affirming that such treatment of residents has no place in Medford.

The United States of America was founded on the principles written in the Constitution. The right to free speech and the right to protest are integral parts of being a resident in the United States of America. To know that ICE agents can come into our communities while wearing plain clothes, no identifying markers, masks on so you can't identify them either, pull up on a woman walking by herself in the street, physically put their hands on her, remove her phone and her bag without her consent and then whisk her away into an unmarked vehicle is beyond horrifying. These are the same tactics that the Gestapo used on the Jewish community in Germany. 

Knowing that Tufts main campus resides in Medford and as members of the Medford community, it is important for us to have leadership that stands strong and speaks out when government entities use their power to abuse the rights of people. 

ICE is potentially illegally, targeting students on student visas, immigrants who are trying to make a home here in the United States, by going after them for using their right constitutional right to free speech. Today it's them (the most vulnerable of us), it won't be much longer till the normalization of this behavior expands into going after citizens for speaking out and disappearing them in the middle of the night. These are the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, which state “no person” is to be deprived of due process. It’s not a slope, it’s a red line! Either all of us have rights or no one does.

We demand that Mayor Lungo-Koehn immediately release a statement that is not only in support of Rumeysa Ozturk but also expresses clearly that this kind of treatment of residents will not stand in Medford.