The Constitution Protects Everyone in the United States

Arrest of Turkish Ph.D. Student in Somerville; Bridges v. Wixon; Views of Kent and Blackstone; the Constitution as a Bulwark Against Tyranny

(SOMERVILLE) — In a gravely troubling illustration of the continuing and severe constitutional crisis in the United States, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Ph.D. student studying at Tufts University who co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts Daily last year critical of Israel and the Tufts administration, was seized and arrested on the streets of Somerville by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — several of whom were masked — last week on Tuesday, March 25th.

(The arrest of Ms. Ozturk on Tuesday, March 25th; credit — CBS Boston.)

Ms. Ozturk had been detained in the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana (this was according to ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System; however, as of the afternoon of April 1st, Ms. Ozturk does not appear in a search of the system).

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in a statement to WBZ NewsRadio 1030 made on the evening of Wednesday, March 26th, said that “Rumeysa Ozturk is a Turkish national and Tufts University graduate student, granted the privilege to be in this country on a visa.” The statement alleged that “DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security."

One of Ms. Ozturk’s attorneys, Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law in North Easton, said in a statement that “Rümeysa Öztürk’s experience is shocking, cruel, and unconstitutional. For nearly 24 hours, we could not locate her, and despite a court order to prevent the government from taking her out of Massachusetts, we finally learned the Trump administration had shipped her to Louisiana. Criticizing U.S. foreign policy and human rights violations is neither illegal nor grounds for detention. The government must immediately release Rümeysa to continue her studies and rejoin her community.”

Ms. Ozturk is evidently being detained on the grounds that she co-authored a March 26th, 2024, opinion piece published in the Tufts Daily that criticized both Israel’s actions in Gaza and the response by the Tufts Administration. “Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide,” wrote Ms. Ozturk and her co-authors, arguing that “the University’s response to the Senate resolutions has been wholly inadequate and dismissive of the Senate, the collective voice of the student body.”

One can agree or disagree with her and her co-authors’ views — one can argue against them, and think them ill-founded and wrong. What is inarguable, however, is that writing an opinion essay in a newspaper on a matter of immediate public concern is the quintessence of free expression as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”), as well as Article 77 of the Massachusetts Constitution (“The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth. The right of free speech shall not be abridged.”)

Contrary to what is frequently but erroneously asserted, non-citizens are subject to the protections of, and hold rights under, the constitutions of the United States and the several States.¹

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell made the following statement, via Twitter/X, on the 26th (reported on here by Dialynn Dwyer for Boston.com): “The footage of Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest — a student here legally — is disturbing.”

She continued: “Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views. This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court. My office is closely monitoring this matter as it develops.”

Nor were other voices of civil society silent. As reported by Dialynn Dwyer for Boston.com, Dave Foley, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Massachusetts State Council, made the following statement on behalf of delegates from several SEIU Locals in Massachusetts, representing approximately 120,000 members, including Ms. Ozturk:

“We join in solidarity with all supporters of free speech and immigrant rights in denouncing federal immigration authorities’ detention of Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts and a member of SEIU Local 509. The detention of Ms. Ozturk is part of Homeland Security’s despicable effort to stifle speech by immigrants who express views that Donald Trump and his surrogates simply don’t like,” said Mr. Foley.

“Free speech and the right to protest are the very foundation upon which the labor movement was built. Using detention and the threat of deportation as tactics to target activists is an attempt to deter us from advocating for a better world. It is intended to send a clear and chilling message that anyone who challenges injustice will be met with retribution. When a student, worker, or any member of our community is punished for exercising their rights, we all suffer, and standing up against these tactics is critical to the strength and integrity of any social movement,” he said.

There were also, in the language of the 18th century, “the people out of doors.” As reported by Samantha Eng, Matthew Sage and Josué Pérez of the Tufts Daily, thousands of protesters flooded Powder House Park in Somerville on Wednesday the 26th, decrying the arbitrary detention of Ms. Ozturk. According to the Tufts Daily, participants included Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, President of the Medford City Council Zac Bears, and State Representatives Erika Uyterhoeven and Mike Connoly.

On Friday, March 28th, in response to an amended habeas corpus petition filed in federal court in Boston on Ms. Ozturk’s behalf by her attorneys, U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper ordered that Ms. Ozturk not be taken outside the United States without leave of the court.

“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the Petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further Order of this Court. See Mahmoud Khalil v. Joyce, No. 25-cv-01935-JMF at ECF No. 9, 2025 WL 750599 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 10, 2025) (ruling that ‘[t]o preserve the Court’s jurisdiction pending a ruling on the petition, Petitioner shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise’)”.²

Judge Casper gave the Government until 5 p.m. today, April 1st, to respond.

A Seizure Contrary to Precedent: Bridges v. Wixon

Ms. Ozturk’s arbitrary arrest stands contrary to nearly four centuries of precedent in the Bay Commonwealth and the American Republic. The first and most relevant is a 1945 decision of the United States Supreme Court, Bridges v. Wixon, argued on April 2nd, 1945, and decided on June 18th, 1945. This case concerned Harry Bridges, an alien who had entered the United States in 1920 from his native Australia, who had subsequently resided here and worked as a longshoreman; he emerged as a labor leader and activist who was accused of association with the Communist Party.

Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the Court, described some of the alleged association with Communists — including the publication of a labor newspaper, making this case directly applicable to Ms. Ozturk’s present situation:

“The associations which Harry Bridges had with various Communist groups seem to indicate no more than cooperative measures to attain objectives which were wholly legitimate. The link by which it is sought to tie him to subversive activities is an exceedingly tenuous one, if it may be said to exist at all. The Trade Union Unity League was found to be a Communist organization. It chartered the Marine Workers' Industrial Union in 1930, which continued until 1935 and was found to be a proscribed organization. That union launched the Waterfront Worker, a mimeographed sheet, in 1932. The Attorney General sustained Judge Sears' finding that Bridges sponsored it and was responsible for its publication shortly after it first appeared in 1932 and down to its abandonment in 1936.”³

Critically, the Court held that “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country. Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252.”⁴

Justice Frank Murphy, in his concurring opinion, wrote eloquently of the larger ramifications of the case.

"Deportation, with all its grave consequences, should not be sanctioned on such weak and unconvincing proof of a real and imminent threat to our national security. Congress has ample power to protect the United States from internal revolution and anarchy without abandoning the ideals of freedom and tolerance. We as a nation lose part of our greatness whenever we deport or punish those who merely exercise their freedoms in an unpopular though innocuous manner. The strength of this nation is weakened more by those who suppress the freedom of others than by those who are allowed freely to think and act as their consciences dictate,” wrote Justice Murphy.

He continued: “Our concern in this case does not halt with the fate of Harry Bridges, an alien whose constitutional rights have been grossly violated. The significance of this case is far-reaching. The liberties of the 3,500,000 other aliens in this nation are also at stake. Many of these aliens, like many of our forebears, were driven from their original homelands by bigoted authorities who denied the existence of freedom and tolerance. It would be a dismal prospect for them to discover that their freedom in the United States is dependent upon their conformity to the popular notions of the moment. But they need not make that discovery. The Bill of Rights belongs to them as well as to all citizens. It protects them as long as they reside within the boundaries of our land. It protects them in the exercise of the great individual rights necessary to a sound political and economic democracy. Neither injunction, fine, imprisonment nor deportation can be utilized to restrict or prevent the exercise of intellectual freedom. Only by zealously guarding the rights of the most humble, the most unorthodox and the most despised among us can freedom flourish and endure in our land."⁵

Kent and Blackstone on the Rights of Aliens

Further insight into the long-standing nature of the rights of aliens under the Constitution are provided by James Kent in his 19th century Commentaries on American Law. In Lecture 25, “Of Aliens and Natives”, he writes that “lawful residence does, pro hac vice [here meaning “for this turn”, i.e., for this occasion — Cronin], relieve the alien from the character of an enemy, and entitles his person and property to protection.”

“During the residence of aliens amongst us, they owe a local allegiance, and are equally bound with natives to obey all general laws for the maintenance of peace, and the preservation of order, and which do not relate specially to our own citizens. This is a principle of justice and of public safety universally adopted; and if they are guilty of any illegal act, or involved in disputes with our citizens, or with each other, they are amenable to the ordinary tribunals of the country,” wrote Chancellor Kent.⁶

Even prior to the existence of the United States, aliens enjoyed rights under English law. William Blackstone described these rights in his famous 18th century legal treatise, Commentaries on the Laws of England.

“LOCAL allegiance is such as is due from an alien, or stranger born, for so long time as he continues within the king's dominion and protection: and it ceases, the instant such stranger transfers himself from this kingdom to another…. that allegiance is a debt due from the subject, upon an implied contract with the prince, that so long as the one affords protection, so long the other will demean himself faithfully.”⁷ Contrary to what Sec. of State Marco Rubio seems to believe, exercising one’s lawful rights under the Massachusetts and U.S. Constitutions is in fact “demean[ing] [one]self faithfully” to those same documents.

Aliens also possessed extensive economic rights, according to Blackstone — and this ten years before the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

“Yet an alien may acquire a property in goods, money, and other personal estate, or may hire a house for his habitation: for personal estate is of a transitory and movable nature; and besides, this indulgence to strangers is necessary for the advancement of trade. Aliens also may trade as freely as other people….” (though subject to higher customs duties, Blackstone notes; certain other restrictions on the economic activity of foreigners established in the time of Henry VIII were, the consensus view was, repealed by the statute 5 Elizabeth I c. 7)

“Also an alien may bring an action concerning personal property, and may make a will, and dispose of his personal estate: not as it is in France, where the king at the death of an alien is entitled to all he is worth, by the droit d'aubaine [right to inherit from an alien] or jus albinatus [alien law], unless he has a peculiar exemption.”⁸

Elsewhere, in his discussion of the elements of the crime of homicide, Blackstone is very clear that the King’s Peace, the protection of the laws and the constitutional order (see also “the jurisdiction of the United States”), applied universally within the realm of England; those who were not subjects of the Crown, who were members of religious minorities, and who themselves had broken the law, were still “under the king’s peace”:

“FARTHER; the person killed must be “a reasonable creature “in being, and under the king's peace,” at the time of the killing. Therefore to kill an alien, a Jew, or an outlaw, who are all under the king's peace or protection, is as much murder as to kill the most regular born Englishman; except he be an alien-enemy, in time of war.”⁹ [Blackstone appears to be missing a quotation mark above]

Ms. Ozturk is not an alien enemy. Congress has not declared war on Turkey (and indeed, has not declared a war since 1941 — one of the clearest indicators of the abdication and retreat of the legislative branch). As both Kent and Blackstone make clear above, she is subject to, and protected by, the laws and the Constitutions of the United States and Massachusetts, including the First Amendment to the former and the 77th Amendment to the latter.

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties

Protection of the rights of resident aliens was established by one of the earliest constitutional documents in New England and the United States, the 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties.

“We hould it therefore our dutie and safetie whilst we are about the further establishing of this Government to collect and expresse all such freedomes as for present we foresee may concerne us, and our posteritie after us, And to ratify them with our sollemne consent.

Wee doe therefore this day religiously and unanimously decree and confirme these following Rites, liberties and priveledges concerneing our Churches, and Civill State to be respectively impartiallie and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our Jurisdiction for ever,” the document states.

The first liberty enumerated is directly relevant to Ms. Ozturk’s situation:

“1. No mans life shall be taken away, no mans honour or good name shall be stayned, no mans person shall be arested, restrayned, banished, dismembred, nor any wayes punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children, no mans goods or estaite shall be taken away from him, nor any way indammaged under colour of law or Countenance of Authoritie, unlesse it be by vertue or equitie of some expresse law of the Country waranting the same, established by a generall Court and sufficiently published, or in case of the defect of a law in any parteculer case by the word of God. And in Capitall cases, or in cases concerning dismembring or banishment according to that word to be judged by the Generall Court.”¹⁰

The second enumerated liberty is likewise directly applicable to Ms. Ozturk’s case:

“2. Every person within this Jurisdiction, whether Inhabitant or forreiner shall enjoy the same justice and law, that is generall for the plantation, which we constitute and execute one towards another without partialitie or delay.”¹¹

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties remains a vital body of organic law (see, for example, its guarantee of common rights in Great Ponds in Art. 16). Ms. Ozturk, by precedents and laws both ancient and modern, is entitled to “enjoy the same justice and law, that is general” in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States.

Conclusion: The Constitution and the Laws as a Bulwark Against Tyranny

It has been a matter of remarkable curiosity to me that, for a long time now, we have heard extensively from voices which have loudly cried out that a duly enacted law of the Commonwealth constitutes tyranny, or, more generally, that any attempt to establish a social welfare state the likes of which every other developed democracy possesses is tantamount to Bolshevik totalitarianism.

Yet when a resident alien, in this country lawfully for the purposes of studying at one of our institutions of higher education, and having committed no crime, is abducted from the streets of an American city by agents of the government, several of whom are masked to hide their identity, because of a newspaper op-ed she co-authored — in other words, when actual tyranny rears its head — these self-same voices fall remarkably and notably silent. It is a strange, and I must say inconsistent, canon of interpretation which views the entirely lawful enactment of a statute one does not like as tyrannical, but which raises no objection to the arrest and detention of a person for exercising her right to freedom of speech and the press under both the Massachusetts and U.S. Constitution.

The fact is that the laws and the Constitution do protect Ms. Ozturk. The idea, attributed to Mark Twain, that history doesn’t repeat itself, but that it does rhyme, is certainly relevant here.

In the age of the American Revolution, the removal of the accused out of the jurisdiction in which they are accused is referenced in the Declaration of Independence (“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences” is one of the enumerated grievances; I thought of this generally, but owe this specific reference to retired Maine chef and online commentator Mike Poirier). I worry greatly that the ancient spirit of liberty which animated the Revolutionary era, and the 17th century before it, is in danger in this country. It would be the gravest unwisdom to think that a lawless and arbitrary executive, having successfully invaded the rights of resident aliens, would stop there. If the law which protects aliens may be violated with impunity, what impediment exists to violating those same laws in their protection of citizens? “No man is an island,/ Entire of itself,/ Every man is a piece of the continent,/ A part of the main.”¹²

James Madison gave his view on these rights early in the history of the republic (as quoted by Justice Hugo Black in Bridges v. California (1941):

“Although I know whenever the great rights, the trial by jury, freedom of the press, or liberty of conscience, come in question in that body [Parliament], the invasion of them is resisted by able advocates, yet their Magna Charta does not contain any one provision for the security of those rights respecting which the people of America are most alarmed. The freedom of the press and rights of conscience, those choicest privileges of the people, are unguarded in the British Constitution.”¹³

Thankfully, these rights are guarded by our American constitutions, both federally and in the several states — as are Ms. Ozturk, and every person in this country, whether or not they are citizens of the United States.

1. See Bridges v. Wixon, infra.

The line of argument — or rather assertion — that the Constitution does not protect non-citizens — is common online among supporters of the Administration. In response, their interlocutors may point to the plain language of The Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

See the valiant efforts here by Lawrence Cook to explain that the Constitution does apply to non-citizens on the local Facebook discussion group “Middleboro Helping Middleboro (No restrictions)” here.

For reference, the Fifth Amendment reads: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

The Fourteenth Amendment reads, in relevant part: “…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

2. The Government did not obey the Court’s prior order that Ms. Ozturk remain in Massachusetts.

3. Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 145 (1945). For aliens in the country unlawfully — which does not describe Ms. Ozturk — see Plyler v. Doe.

4. Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148 (1945).

5. Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 165-66 (1945).

6. James Kent, Commentaries on American Law (1826-30), Lecture 25, “Of Aliens and Natives.” https://lonang.com/library/reference/kent-commentaries-american-law/kent-25/.

7. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England. Book I (1765), Ch. 10, “Of the People, whether Aliens, Denizens, or Natives”; p. 221. https://www.lonang.com/wp-content/download/Blackstone-CommentariesBk1.pdf.

8. Ibid., p. 222.

9. Blackstone, Commentaries, Book IV (1769), Ch. 14, “Of Homicide”, p. 112. https://lonang.com/wp-content/download/Blackstone-CommentariesBk4.pdf.

10. 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties, 1. https://history.hanover.edu/texts/masslib.html.

11. Ibid., 2.

12. John Donne, “No Man Is an Island".

13. Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 264 (1941), quoting Madison in 1 Annals of Congress 1789-1790, 434.