Speaking up needs to be safer than staying silent, or the abuse won’t end.

The video Noor Abdalla took of her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, as he was arrested by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents left me speechless, blinking at my phone as it played on a loop. Not because it was overtly violent, but because the agents tried to make it seem so “normal.”

In the lobby of their New York City apartment building, the young couple carefully questioned the agents about the basis for Mahmoud’s arrest, and why they needed to use handcuffs. Given no information, Mahmoud was marched out of the building, hands behind his back, disappeared into a car, and driven away. Since then, he’s been locked up in a Louisiana immigration jail, and the U.S. government claims their efforts to take his green card away are justified by his pro-Palestine activism. 

The world also watched in horror as Rumeysa Öztürk, a graduate student at Tufts University, was similarly swarmed in public by masked federal agents and taken away. She, too, was “disappeared” to a Louisiana immigration jail — based on an op-ed she wrote in a school newspaper, also about Palestine. 

The fates of both Mahmoud and Rumeysa remain unclear. Although Rumeysa, at least, has been freed. 

Both make me think about one of our clients at the Tahirih Justice Center. We’ll call her Sara. I hope she has not seen the videos of their arrests, but I’m sure she did. Like the students being disappeared by ICE, Sara was born in another country. And, like many college students of all backgrounds, part of her campus experience was standing up for causes she believes in, exercising her right to free speech for the first time. 

The thing is, going to college actually saved Sara’s life. Some university students carry more than boxes when they show up for their first day on campus. 

As a teenager, Sara faced the threat of a forced marriage. That wasn’t what she wanted for her life. She wanted her own dreams, her own future. To find out whether she even wanted to marry someone, and who, on her own. Sara knew that giving in to a marriage she did not want could mean a lifetime of sexual, emotional, and physical violence.  

She was accepted into college, and went. That was Sara’s ticket out, her escape to a new life. She began to focus on the same things that every other university student does — studying, exams, extracurricular activities. Friendships and connections that will last a lifetime. Attending a demonstration or two. 

For some young people, college is just the next step toward the career and salary they want. For people who have escaped oppressive homes, going away to college is a bridge to a life where they can support themselves and grow into the person they were meant to be. Where they don’t have to rely on people who abuse them, and can create a different future for themselves. Even the act of going to college, for Sara, was an exercise in courage. 

Right now, across the country, people living in dangerous and volatile situations are watching the news. They’re seeing what’s happening with the U.S. administration, and how our institutions are responding. Mahmoud Kahlil, Leqaa Kordia, and Rumeysa Öztürk, jailed and facing deportation for speaking out. Ranjani Srinivasan, fleeing to Canada in the dead of night, leaving her cat behind. They see them making the same safety calculations and difficult decisions that they are all-too familiar with. They watch the news; the trauma reopens.

Because of what is happening today, survivors of violence will be even more afraid to ask for help. For them, life is always a calculated game of Risk. Speaking up at home could bring more violence. Calling the police could bring its own trouble. Will you be believed? Will the police actually protect you? Or will they leave you in the hands of the person who is abusing you, made even angrier by your plea for help? 

Or worse, will they care more about your immigration status than the abuse you have experienced, and report you to ICE?

The path to safety for people living in dangerous homes is a support system on the outside that says we are here for you, we believe you, and we will help you get safe. Arresting and potentially deporting people who speak up sends a different message. It says to stay “safe,” you need to stay small. Because the consequences of speaking up are unpredictable; by staying silent, at least, you know the pattern and have learned to survive around it. 

But that’s not good enough. That’s not what Sara deserves. We should all be able to live healthy lives in loving homes, surrounded by people who care for us. To use our constitutionally-protected right to free speech, and work to build a better society for everyone. 

For Sara, and others like her, speaking up needs to be safer than staying silent —  or the abuse won’t end.

Casey Carter Swegman is a Director of Public Policy at the Tahirih Justice Center, and a leading national expert on child and forced marriage in the United States. She has provided direct emergency case management and risk assessment to hundreds of survivors over her 10+ year career, working alongside immigrant survivors of gender-based violence.