On Wednesday, August 27, my friend Reza Zavvar will have a court hearing in Greenbelt, Md. to learn why he has been held captive by the Trump Administration for two months.
Trump says – and Fox reports – that he’s focusing ICE on criminals. This is a lie.
Reza is not a criminal and is not charged with any crimes. He is a legal resident of the U.S. and has been since he was 12.
He was kidnapped by ICE in June while walking his dog outside his mother’s house – where he’d been staying to help take care of his grandmother.
ICE keeps moving Reza around the country – he’s been in at least 3 federal detention facilities, in appalling conditions, with no explanation. The White House is doing this to make it harder for detainees to engage with their lawyers.
Reza is one of many people enduring violent, vindictive treatment from this White House. What they are doing to him – and many others like him – is obscene. Free societies do not imprison people on the whims of elected officials. I hope Reza is released tomorrow. If he’s not, his friends will keep speaking up for him. And if he’s released we need to keep speaking up for everyone else on the receiving end of this criminal cruelty.
