Since January, the Trump administration has abducted several international students and faculty and detained them thousands of miles away from their loved ones all because these scholars have spoken about Israel and Palestine in ways the government doesn’t like. But criticizing U.S. foreign policy, or voicing any other opinion, is protected by the First Amendment—no matter your immigration status.

The ACLU and its partners are representing Rümeysa Öztürk, a Fulbright scholar and Ph.D. student at Tufts University who was arrested and detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Somerville, MA.

Rümeysa Öztürk's legal team

On Monday, April 14, Ms. Öztürk’s legal team asked the Vermont federal judge to affirm that the case should stay in Vermont, and to order her immediate release from ICE detention before she is further harmed by the government’s unconstitutional actions.

On March 25, Ms. Öztürk was planning to go to an iftar dinner with friends. Instead, while walking near her apartment, she was approached and then grabbed by a hooded man. Other figures soon closed in, including several wearing face coverings and dark clothing. Finally, one officer flashed a badge; however, in recent court filings Ms. Öztürk has attested that she did not know they were immigration officers and genuinely feared for her life. Footage shows the plainclothes ICE agents arrested and detained her, then placed her in an unmarked vehicle.

That evening, she was brought to Methuen, MA; then, to Lebanon, NH; and, finally, to St. Albans, VT where she spent the night in a detention cell. While ICE was driving Ms. Öztürk all over New England, her lawyer was frantically filing an emergency habeas petition. That night, a Massachusetts court ordered the government not to remove her from Massachusetts without prior notice.

However, early the next morning, without notifying the court, her counsel, or the Department of Justice counsel, federal agents took her to Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport and transported her to Louisiana, where she has remained in detention ever since. While in transit, Ms. Öztürk suffered an asthma attack, which her friends had been worried about as she did not have her medication. Since being detained, she has suffered at least three more medical episodes.

A child development researcher who is getting her Ph.D. at Tufts University, Ms. Öztürk is known for her dedication to her work, to her community, and to her loved ones.

A former boss said in a letter to the court that as a teaching assistant she was “outstanding—kind, approachable, and deeply attentive to the psychological needs of her students as we navigated the challenges of the pandemic.” He said that "students in her section wrote glowing reviews, highlighting her empathy, dedication, and commitment to their well-being.”

A good friend describes her to ProPublica as a “bookish cat lover” who was “serious about [her] studies and [her] faith.” Her roommate calls her “a friend with a kind heart and uplifting spirit.”

In her own words, she describes herself as “a Ph.D. student working with children and youth,” saying, “we know that injustice in the world and systemic brutality towards people of color has long-lasting negative effects on children, youth, and other communities. My life is committed to choosing peaceful and inclusive ways to meet the needs of children. I believe the world is a more beautiful and peaceful place when we listen to each other and allow different perspectives to be in the room. Writing is one of the most peaceful ways of addressing systemic inequality. Efforts to target me because of my op-ed in the Tufts Daily calling for the equal dignity and humanity of all people will not deter me from my commitment to advocate for the rights of youth and children.”

To be clear, Ms. Öztürk has not been charged with any crime. According to all available evidence, the government is putting Ms. Öztürk through this harrowing experience solely because of the op-ed that she co-wrote with four other students for the college newspaper last spring. The op-ed criticized Tufts leadership’s response to the Tufts Community Union Senate passing several resolutions concerning human rights violations in Gaza. Months after that op-ed was written, and just weeks before she was detained, the website Canary Mission published a profile on Ms. Öztürk, including her photograph, claiming she “engaged in anti-Israel activism.” Its sole support for the contention was a link and screenshots of her op-ed. When asked about her case, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed revoking her visa, adding, “we gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.”

On April 13, the Washington Post obtained an internal State Department memo that was prepared days before Ms. Öztürk was detained, which found no evidence linking her to antisemitism or terrorism.

The government claims it brought Ms. Öztürk to St. Albans, VT, because there were no overnight beds for women available in Massachusetts. Usually, ICE detains people in Vermont in a state correctional facility; for women, that’s typically Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CCRF). ICE officials also said in court documents that out-of-state transfers are “routinely conducted after arrest, due to operational necessity.”

It is true that over half of all immigration detainees are held in Texas and Louisiana; March 2024 data suggests 18,596 people were detained in those two states compared to just 204 in Massachusetts or 648 in New York. However, immigration attorneys say the late-night hopscotch is an increasingly common ICE tactic to complicate jurisdiction and thwart legal attempts to stop them from being removed. Louisiana and Texas, they say, are also favored destinations because the courts often issue decisions limiting migrant rights.

More generally, moving people away from their community isolates them from their attorneys, family, and friends, which the government hopes will drive some to give up their legal fight to stay in the United States.

Ms. Öztürk is one of several students and scholars that the Trump administration has targeted for their protected speech. Her detainment follows those of recent Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident; and Georgetown University’s Dr. Badar Khan Suri.

Since Ms. Öztürk’s detention, the Trump administration has also begun revoking thousands of student visas across the country, often with no explanation whatsoever.

Ultimately, the Trump administration cannot order ICE to silence anyone with political opinions they disagree with, which is exactly what the ACLU of Massachusetts, ACLU of Vermont, CLEAR, and the rest of Ms. Öztürk’s legal team are arguing in court. We are urging the judge to order that ICE immediately release Ms. Öztürk so that she can be reunited with her community in Somerville, where she hopes to resume her studies as soon as possible.

A version of this article originally appeared on the ACLU of Vermont’s website.

After President Donald Trump issued an executive order restricting access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under 19, many hospitals nationwide abruptly cut off treatment for trans youth. This sent thousands of families scrambling, with some even wondering if they needed to leave the country to protect their family’s future.

If enforced, President Trump’s order will deny transgender youth access to medically-necessary care, like puberty blockers and hormone therapy, even as these same treatments remain readily available to their cisgender peers. The order also intends to cut or reduce federal funding for health care providers who refuse to prioritize the Trump administration’s political preferences over their patients’ medical needs.

At the American Civil Liberties Union, we know that politics and partisanship have no place in patient care and we all deserve the freedom to be ourselves. On February 4th, alongside Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Maryland, we sued the Trump administration to block its discriminatory efforts to limit needed health care. We filed our suit on behalf of transgender young adults and their families, as well as PFLAG and GLMA, two of the nation’s largest organizations supporting LGBTQ+ people and healthcare professionals.

Since his first term, Trump and his administration have carried out a years-long effort to roll back protections for LGBTQ people. Beginning in January, the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders that remove protections for trans people. His directives include targeting transgender students, banning trans Americans from military service, and giving federal agencies the green light to openly discriminate against their trans employees. These orders align with the extremist vision of Project 2025, a sweeping right-wing agenda that seeks to dismantle civil rights protections, consolidate presidential power, and dehumanize transgender people.

J Matt/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

President Trump “is determined to use every level of government to drive transgender people out of public life,” says Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project.

For Cameron, Gabe, and Robert, three of the five trans young people challenging the Trump administration’s anti-trans agenda, this fight goes beyond the courtroom. It’s about their fundamental right to make deeply personal medical decisions without government interference.

For Cameron, words like “boy” or “girl” were never meaningful. Being seen as nonbinary makes them feel “strong, happy, recognized, and loved.” Before puberty, they worried about how others would treat them based on their clothes and pronouns. Now, as their physical-self matures, Cameron worries about how they see their own body. “The changes feel violating,” they say. “It makes me depressed, stressed, and anxious.”

After seeing a therapist, Cameron’s parents consulted a doctor who first spoke to them about puberty blockers, a temporary pause that gives people time to decide whether to undergo male or female puberty. Getting more time was a relief to Cameron who, after starting treatment at 12, remembers feeling "less stressed and a little more hopeful."

However, Cameron’s appointment for a puberty-blocking implant was abruptly canceled after the Trump administration issued its executive order. Their anxieties came rushing back, resulting in stomach pain, restless sleep, and missed school. Their parents fought to find a new doctor. Though Cameron did finally receive their implant, they fear losing care again. “I do not want to feel like a stranger in my body,” they told the ACLU.

For Gabe, a 14-year-old transgender boy, he hopes gender-affirming medical care will help him look and sound more like himself. Often, when strangers see him in public, they address him using male pronouns. Until he speaks. His voice still does not reflect who he is and causes people to misgender him, which only adds to the anxiety and dysmorphia that began when he started puberty.

“Even when I wasn’t sure why the changes felt wrong, I just knew they were,” Gabe says, reflecting on his experience trying to navigate his changing body.

To treat his dysphoria, Gabe’s parents consulted a doctor who explained how testosterone could help him feel more comfortable in his body. Gabe knew it was the right choice for him. “I want to be in a grown-up male body when I’m older,” he says. “I want the choice to tell people, not to be revealed by my voice.”

Gabe hoped to begin testosterone treatments in March 2025, but the administration’s actions put his plans at risk. Like many trans youth, Gabe now fears that he won’t have the choice to present as he truly is.

Families of trans youth also feel the impact of Trump’s discriminatory order. Rachel, a member of PFLAG, has always prioritized her son Robert’s health and well-being. From a very early age, she knew that Robert was meant to be a boy and that “he would thrive in school and the rest of his life if we let him live that way.”

At nine, Robert was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Rachel made sure he received the care he needed. Under medical guidance, he began puberty blockers to prevent changes that would conflict with his identity. By 14, after years of therapy and careful consideration, he started testosterone. “As his mother, I agreed with his doctors that Robert would benefit from going through puberty alongside his peers,” Rachel says.

Robert is 16 now and is “healthy, social, and thriving.” But on January 29th, Rachel received a call: Robert’s appointment, a routine check-up for his hormone therapy, was canceled. “I am devastated that the president has sought to prevent my child from accessing the health care that allows him to be his true self,” Rachel says.

Without testosterone, Rachel fears that Robert will face severe distress. “This is a child who has told me since age two that he is a boy,” she says. “He is now a young man. It would be alarming for him to suddenly develop a woman’s body.”

Cameron, Robert, Gabe, and so many families like theirs see President Trump’s assault on their rights for what it is: an overreach of presidential power to deny them the health care that serves as the foundation of their lives and their future. At the ACLU, we refuse to let politics dictate who can and cannot receive essential healthcare, but our fight is about more than policy. Like all of us, trans youth deserve to grow up with the care and support they need. We will not stop fighting until their rights are protected.

There’s growing concern that President Donald Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act to bring National Guard troops under federal control and deploy them within the U.S. This speculation may be partly because one of President Trump’s Inauguration Day executive orders, which declared a national emergency at the southern border set an April 20 deadline for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to recommend whether to use the Insurrection Act. That date is approaching quickly.

Make no mistake: If Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to activate federalized troops for mass deportation—whether at the border or somewhere else in the country—it would be unprecedented, unnecessary, and wrong. But the president has already been increasing domestic military use. As recently as April 11th, he issued a new memorandum with yet another chill-inducing title: "Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” It’s worth repeating that there is no invasion of America, and if President Trump doubts that, he could consult himself. Last month he declared on Truth Social that the (fictional) “Invasion of our Country is OVER.” Yet under his new directive, the Defense Department is claiming new and potentially expansive powers over large swaths of federal land—including where US citizens and other border residents live. .

Let’s step back a bit first and recall the military’s proper, limited role on U.S. soil, and the dangerous steps President Trump is already taking in service of his cruel anti-immigrant, anti-American agenda.

When the Founders drafted the Constitution, they were concerned about constraining a rogue executive, preventing a standing (i.e. large and permanent) army, ensuring civilian government and a nonpartisan military, and safeguarding civil rights and civil liberties. From then until now, we know that a core component of liberty and democracy is the strong presumption against military enforcement of civil law—put simply, the military should not be policing civilians.

For these reasons, even when the Founders and Congress have given the president war and emergency powers, it is with constraints. For example, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 makes it a crime to use federal military forces “to execute the law,” except when “expressly authorized” under the Constitution or by an act of Congress. In practice, this means that the Defense Department generally forbids federal troops from carrying out direct civilian law enforcement activities on U.S. soil such as surveillance of individuals, questioning and interrogations, arrests, searches, and seizures, among other things.

Another key principle is civilian control over the military, which means that military troops must follow a president’s lawful orders. Troops don’t get to pick and choose which lawful civilian orders they follow and which they don’t. But for this system to work, presidents and military leaders must be careful to ensure that the orders they give are unambiguously lawful. Otherwise, they put troops at legal and ethical risk, weaken military cohesion, and undermine the constitutional design, which prevents direct military involvement in civilian life, except in the limited circumstance of genuine crises.

Nor should the military act—or appear to act—in service of a partisan political agenda. Domestic deployment of the federal military is rare and has historically been reserved for genuine emergencies, like the extreme situation of an actual war, an armed rebellion, or to enforce federal laws if civilian agencies and courts aren’t functioning. One clear example comes from 1958, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act (which is an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act) and deployed federal troops to Arkansas to enforce the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision and guard the Little Rock Nine against a racist and violent mob. President Eisenhower acted after then- Governor Orval Faubus had deployed the state National Guard to support segregationists in defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision.

The Constitution also allocates power between the federal government and the states, generally imposing on the federal government the duty to enforce federal law and defend against truly extreme crises and emergencies, while reserving police powers to the states. Normally, National Guard troops are maintained by states, under the command of their governors, as explained below. States have a critically important role to play in ensuring lawful and appropriate use of police powers within their state while safeguarding individual civil liberties and rights.

Applying these principles, here are the key things to know about how domestic military deployment normally works:

States’ National Guard Deployment

• The National Guard’s normal, default role is under the control of the governor of each state or territory (or, for Washington, D.C., the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard). Governors may activate their National Guard within the state, at state expense, for purposes authorized by state laws and regulations. When National Guard troops are activated, their conduct—including use of force—is also governed by state law. The federal Posse Comitatus Act’s prohibition against troops carrying out civilian law enforcement functions does not apply to National Guard units in state status, but governors, National Guard commanding officers, and troops themselves must always abide by the limits and protections in their state constitution and the U.S. Constitution.

Federal Role in National Guard Deployment

Congress has enacted laws governing both federal military and National Guard deployment and conduct in Titles 10 and 32 of the U.S. Code.

• Title 32 duty. Under Title 32, National Guard troops can be deployed into active duty to provide support for federal or joint state-federal operations or missions that are authorized by Congress or carried out at the request of the president or secretary of defense. Historically, these federally-supported purposes include things like a large-scale humanitarian or natural disaster response, or drug interdiction. In this status, the troops are federally funded and trained but remain under the command and control of their state governor.
  As a matter of federal law and practice, the president or secretary of defense can request state National Guard deployment in Title 32 status. State governors can decline such a request. If National Guard troops in Title 32 status are deployed across a state’s borders to another state, it is generally with the authorization of both the requesting and “receiving” states. Like with state active-duty troops, the conduct of National Guard troops in Title 32 status is governed—and limited—by state rules and law, as well as the Constitution and other relevant federal laws.

• Title 10 duty. In Title 10 of the U.S. Code, Congress has legislated the roles of the federal armed forces and the Department of Defense. Title 10 federal duty for National Guard troops has historically been rare. The National Guard may be deployed into active duty by the president under Title 10 for a federal purpose, with command and control resting solely with the president and the secretary of defense. National Guard troops deployed under Title 10 are federally funded and are often referred to as “federalized” National Guard.
  Congress has prohibited troops—federal and federalized National Guard—deployed under Title 10 from providing “direct assistance” to civilian law enforcement—under both the Posse Comitatus Act and a separate provision of Title 10. The Posse Comitatus Act applies to all current Title 10 deployments on U.S. soil, and troops deployed under it to the southern border are prohibited from carrying out arrests, searches, and seizures. The Insurrection Act is generally understood as the primary exception to the Posse Comitatus Act’s prohibitions.

On Inauguration Day, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border, falsely claiming an invasion, and authorized a dramatic increase in the number of federalized National Guard troops deployed to the border under Title 10. Since then, he’s also sent combat vehicles to our border communities. So far, Trump’s domestic troop deployment has been limited to support for border operations. Troops have been supporting border wall construction and materials transportation, monitoring and detection assistance, and providing logistical assistance for civilian agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

But his actions are worsening the conditions under which civilian border communities live. Our southern border is home to approximately 19 million people, in addition to the regular business and trade commuters who come across the border every day. In recent years, U.S. citizens and other border residents have been exposed to intrusive civilian law enforcement surveillance, aggressive federal policing, border patrol checkpoints they must pass through for medical care and daily activities, and environmental degradation from border wall construction. Border patrol agents have engaged in deadly vehicular pursuits and excessive use of force against border residents, and in one of his initial executive orders, President Trump revoked the 2023 Customs and Border Protection policy to limit these deadly chases.

On April 11, Trump issued a memorandum giving the Defense Department use and jurisdiction over public civilian lands along the border—including the Roosevelt Reservation in New Mexico and excluding Federal Indian Reservations—for military activities. Trump’s directive allows the secretary of defense to identify “military activities that are reasonably necessary and appropriate” including actions to “protect and maintain the security of military installations” and exclude people from newly designated “national defense areas.” In other words, Trump is opening the door to an expanding military role that goes beyond logistical support—and potentially beyond the identified zone.

The new policy has serious implications for border residents living under this expanded militarized zone, which includes cities like San Diego, CA; Nogales, Arizona; El Paso, Texas and other heavily populated, thriving communities. People in these areas could now face federal prosecution for trespassing if they unintentionally walk or drive onto a designated “national defense area.”

Given the numerous documented cases of excessive use of force by border patrol agents, we are deeply concerned about the potentially dangerous consequences of adding more armed troops to border communities, in an environment that military personnel may not be trained for. Trump’s new memorandum states that “members of the Armed Forces will follow rules for the use of force prescribed by the Secretary of Defense,” but these rules may be completely inappropriate for densely populated, civilian areas.

President Trump has not invoked the Insurrection Act—yet. But his administration continues to invest in the theatre of war, like wrongly invoking wartime authorities such as the Alien Enemies Act, and threatening drone strikes against drug cartels in Mexico. None of this makes us safer, and this latest move to hand over public land to the military forces our civilian communities to live in fear.

Right now, we are calling on members of Congress to insist on oversight for these expanded actions—in particular, any changes to rules governing use of force—and to call for safeguards and transparency to protect border residents from escalating military control over their daily lives.

These developments are bad enough. Invocation of the Insurrection Act is both unnecessary and would make them worse.