GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, a group of Democratic members of Congress traveled to Louisiana yesterday to visit foreign students Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk in a pair of federal detention facilities as both face potential removal from the U.S. Video captured agents last month apprehending Ozturk, a Turkish national with a valid F-1 student visa near her home outside Boston.

Khalil is a former Columbia University graduate student who was also arrested by ICE officials.

The Trump administration maintains they're each a threat to national security for their activism against the Israeli war with Hamas in Gaza.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey was part of that visit and joins us now.

Thanks for being with us, sir.

Trump officials say Rumeysa Ozturk's visa was revoked because she allegedly engaged in activities supporting Hamas.

She's a Ph.D. student at a university in your state.

What's your understanding of why she was detained and targeted for deportation?

SEN. EDWARD MARKEY: Well, the only public statement which has been made is that she wrote an op-ed in the Tufts University undergraduate newspaper about her views on a resolution that had passed in the Tufts government, undergraduate government.

So that's the accusation against her, that she exercised her free speech to be able to have an opinion an action that was taken by the student government at Tufts University.

That's protected under the First Amendment of the United States, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.

And, beyond that, there have been no accusations.

There's been no evidence of a crime.

They haven't even alleged a crime, and yet they whisked her off of the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, where Tufts University is located, moved her to Vermont and then to Atlanta, and then to a remote part of Louisiana, where Congressman Jim McGovern and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and I visited her yesterday.

And, thus far, they are presented, from the government's perspective, no evidence that in any way could be constituted as a crime, and that is a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States.

That is the protection under due process to have the evidence presented against you.

And they have not done that either.

For four weeks, she's been in prison, no charge of a crime, no evidence presented against her, and yet she sits there in prison wearing an orange jumpsuit without any accusation that has been publicly made by the Trump administration.

GEOFF BENNETT: What's your understanding of the Trump administration's motivation in moving her to that facility in Louisiana, despite a court order maintaining that she would remain in Massachusetts?

And, beyond that, under what conditions is she being held right now?

SEN. EDWARD MARKEY: Well, she was in Vermont when she was moved.

And obviously the Trump administration is forum shopping.

They're trying to find the most conservative circuit code of appeals in the United States, which is the Fifth Circuit, which is where Louisiana is located.

And so to the extent to which they have moved Rumeysa 1,500 miles away from Somerville, and then 100 miles further out from the New Orleans Airport, they seek to distance her from her family, from her friends, from her attorneys, from any support system that could be provided to her.

And it's all a part of a pattern, which, by the way, is the same thing that they did to Mahmoud Khalil, who is also in prison down in Louisiana in one of these facilities, and we visited him as well.

And I would say that she obviously had a terrifying experience.

Where six undercover law enforcement officers swept her up and into a vehicle, put handcuffs on her, and then, as she was being transported, ultimately she was in chains as she was arriving in Louisiana.

No charges made against her, despite all of that.

And despite her asthma attacks that keep recurring in prison, despite the less-than-ideal conditions in these prisons, the lack of easily accessible medical care or nutrition, or even extra blankets at night if it's too cold, she still has an indomitable spirit, an indomitable spirit.

And it was just a privilege to be able to meet with her.

GEOFF BENNETT: You know, there are those who maintain that no one is entitled to a student visa, it's a privilege granted by the U.S. government, and the federal government should reserve the right and the authority to revoke or deny that privilege as it deems necessary.

What do you say to that argument?

SEN. EDWARD MARKEY: Well, what I say is that we're the United States of America, and she's entitled to due process, and she is entitled to have the evidence presented against her, and it has not happened yet.

There's no provision that says that Marco Rubio, as the secretary of state, can just designate someone like Rumeysa and all of a sudden she can be whisked to a prison, as though we're in Russia or Belarus, with no charges made against her.

No, we're better than that.

And that's why, 250 years ago in Massachusetts, we began the American Revolution to create our Constitution which would provide protections, freedom of speech and protections under the due process Fifth Amendment clauses that have guaranteed that our nation is one of laws, and not of men.

And that man cannot be Marco Rubio or Donald Trump.

It must be the laws that are enforced.

And, right now, this Trump administration is in complete and total disregard for those laws.

And the humanitarian consequences for Rumeysa and thousands of others, the dignity which is being compromised, is absolutely unacceptable in the United States in 2025.

GEOFF BENNETT: Senator Ed Markey, thank you for your time this evening.

We appreciate it.

SEN. EDWARD MARKEY: Great to be with you.

Thank you.