Are Recent Deportations Targeted State Abductions or National Security Measures?

The Trump administration has detained and deported tourists and US residents for what it sees as ties to terrorism. Critics of the administration's actions say that legal residents and tourists have been targeted for their political views. 

For Context: In recent weeks, immigration authorities detained an anonymous French scientist, Brown researcher Dr. Rasha Alawieh, Georgetown graduate student Badar Khan Suri, Columbia Alumni and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, University of Alabama graduate student Alireza Doroudi, Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk and more. 

From the Left: Outlets on the left referred to students as "targeted" for their participation in pro-Palestine protests. In Slate (Left bias) a writer said, "As a Muslim American, in moments like these, it feels like there isn’t much else left to say. The Trump administration is trying to normalize a disquieting new chapter of something that’s happened now for nearly three decades. In that time, we’ve watched our communities surveilled, detained, blacklisted, and interrogated under the guise of national security," adding, "The message has been clear: The government will find a reason to come for us."

From the Right: Becket Adams (Right) in The Hill (Center) argued that the media often buried why these people were detained, in "an omission so glaring as to be intentional." For example, he said, Badar Khan Suri "is the son-in-law of a (possibly) former Hamas official" but Politico (Lean Left) did not provide the Department of Homeland Security's justification for his arrest until the ninth paragraph, "only after the reader is told the foreign national 'has no criminal record' and merely '[opposes] U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.'" He added that "there’s a robust and worthwhile debate to be had about these arrests," but that debate cannot happen when media organizations downplay and hide the administration's justifications. 

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