On March 8th, Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and legal permanent resident of the US, was abducted by ICE agents. He has since been striped of his visa, transferred to Louisiana, and held in detention. The US has admitted that he committed no crime. In a memo, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Khalil should be deported due to “past, current, or expected beliefs.” On April 11th, a Louisiana immigration judge ruled that Khalil could be deported. A separate case is continuing in a federal court in New Jersey.
"If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes,” said Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil's attorneys.
Two weeks after Khalil was abducted from his home, Tufts doctoral student and aspiring children’s book author Rümeysa Öztürk was abducted off the street in Somerville, MA. She was immediately transferred out of Massachusetts and has been held since in detention in Louisiana. Since then, more than 500 students have had their visas revoked.
I have been thinking often of Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters, especially the last stanza of Revolutionary Letter #8:
NO ONE WAY WORKS, it will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is this quotation from C.S. Lewis: “…the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.” I would also advocate for the human actions of calling your reps, donating to Abortion Funds or local food banks, and getting involved with Food not Bombs.
I also really recommend the zine Don’t Just Do Nothing To Counter Fascism, which includes the suggestion “make soup and do not stop inviting people over for soup.” (It was snowing this morning in Cambridge, MA, and I’m making split pea soup with bacon today.)
In a 1930’s throwback, measles is on the loose. If you are extremely old like me and got vaccinated before 1989, there is a chance your doctor may recommend a second measles shot. If you’re still looking for other reasons to get stabbed, new research suggests the shingles vaccine could offer protction against alzheimers. (The US Federal Government is, meanwhile, gutting funding for hundreds of medical research projects.)
One last thing:
I’m holding a generative poetry writing workshop one week from today on 4/19 to raise funds for CLEAR and the Center for Constitutional Rights, who are on the legal team for Mahmoud Khalil. CLEAR is also on Rümeysa Öztürk’s legal team. We’ll talk about how to dive into new poems when you’re stuck, read some poems, respond to prompts, plus talk about how to approach revision. To sign up for the course, donate to CLEAR or CCR and send me a screenshot of the receipt. If you’re looking to get a jump start some new poems, this will help. Find more information here.
Thanks for reading,
Kate