SANTA ANA, Calif. — Today, Representatives Lou Correa (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Border Security & Enforcement, Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, and Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, released the following statement on news reports that the Trump Administration used a transnational crime and counterterrorism unit to secretly target people practicing free speech:
“The Trump Administration has dangerously diverted resources from the Department of Homeland Security meant to prevent terrorism to instead target and detain peaceful individuals exercising their First Amendment right to free speech,” the lawmakers said. “Homeland Security Investigations does critical work on serious transnational crimes like drug smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, and terrorism. But instead of prioritizing those threats, the Trump Administration diverted resources away from critical investigations to illegally arrest and detain people simply for exercising their right to free speech. This is undemocratic, makes our nation less safe, and erodes the constitutional protections of free speech that are the foundation of American democracy.”
BACKGROUND:
Recent reporting revealed how the Trump Administration directed Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) analysts away from their typical work on criminal matters and to a so-called “tiger team” for the sole purpose of investigating, surveilling, and detaining students and other individuals based solely on their political opinions. The HSI analysts that were assigned to the tiger team were pulled away from their normal units where they focused on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cybersecurity. In a federal trial, the head of the intelligence unit at HSI testified that he had never been asked to prepare reports on student activists for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech until the Trump Administration came into power this year. On September 30, 2025, U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston ruled that the Trump Administration’s push to target students was an unconstitutional suppression of free speech that violated the First Amendment.
In one of the cases, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University graduate student, was encircled by federal agents in plain clothes near her home in Massachusetts and forced into an unmarked vehicle. Ozturk had committed no crime but was arrested for co-writing an op-ed critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza with other students more than a year earlier. She remained in an ICE detention facility for six weeks until a judge ordered her release citing that the government produced no evidence demonstrating she posed a risk. Trump’s own State Department stated in an internal memo that the Department of Homeland Security produced no evidence demonstrating that Ozturk had engaged in any antisemitic activity or indicated any support for terrorism.