Where is your patriotism now?

Note: This Letter to the Editor was published by Zach Heimach, of Auburn, IN, on April 17, 2025 in KPC News. It has been reprinted here with his permission.

To the Editor:

Three weeks ago Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, was taken off the street by federal agents in hooded sweatshirts and shipped to Louisiana where she is being detained. It has been three weeks and the federal government has not charged her with a crime. It has been three weeks and the federal government has provided no concrete evidence or justification for her detainment. It has been three weeks and the State Department has found no connection of hers to any terrorist group or foreign adversary.

For three weeks she has been detained by the government, denied due process of law, not afforded medical treatment, spent time in a cell with no bed except a hard bench — for what? Since when can a presidential administration grab people off of the street without charge, detain them halfway across the country without evidence, and deny them due process of law despite being legal residents of this country? What kind of Moscow-wannabe operation are we running here?

The only possible reasoning anyone can find is that Ms. Ozturk co-authored an editorial in her student newspaper criticizing Israel’s military action in Gaza, which has killed over 50,000 people, including 10,000 children, at over $17.9 billion of US taxpayers expense, with actions the heads of the UN aid agencies call “utter disregard for human life.” Whether or not you agree with those actions, last time I checked, writing an editorial wasn’t a crime. Perhaps I should be worried.

Now, where are the sunshine patriots who talk about limited government and criticize what they see as “illegal” government overreach? Where are the people who love posting the American flag on their Facebook pages and fly the Gadsen flag from their porches? Where are Sen. Jim Banks and Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who swore an oath not to a person but to this Constitution? Suddenly, they’re all real quiet. So I would remind them of this: if it can happen to Rumeysa Ozturk — if it can happen to Mahmoud Khalil — if it can happen to Kilmar Abrego Garcia who now sits (“mistakenly,” according to the Justice Department) in an El Salvador prison despite a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling directing the government to facilitate his return to America — then it can happen to you. If we allow due process of law to be thrown out of the window, your silence today may be your sentencing tomorrow.

-Zach Heimach