This month, Vashon residents have raised their voices in opposition to the Donald Trump administration at two major demonstrations in the heart of town.

We share their concerns, and want to focus on one that disturbs us in particular: The erosion of due process and freedom of expression.

Federal agents are on an arresting spree across college campuses, fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to voters last year to deport those the administration deems as pro-terrorism.

“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump told donors during his 2024 presidential campaign, The Washington Post reported.

Those arrested now include Mahmoud Khalil, an activist and graduate student at Columbia. Federal agents acted on orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa, but upon learning from Khalil’s lawyer that he was a lawful resident with a green card, said they were revoking that status instead. They later accused him of withholding information on his 2024 green card application, civil charges which Khalil’s attorneys deny.

Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University with a student visa, was arrested near her apartment March 25 on her way to break the Ramadan fast. Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder, was detained at what he was told was an interview to apply for U.S. citizenship.

The legal cases against them are flimsy at best. None, thus far, have been charged with a crime. By all appearances, they appear instead to be targeted primarily for their pro-Palestinian speech and activism and criticism of Israel — and because they are vulnerable to the whims of the administration and to a law, the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the U.S. to deport anyone it deems a threat to its foreign policy goals.

Deporting someone for violent or illegal behavior is one matter, and there is no doubt that protests on college campuses and elsewhere have, in numerous cases, spilled over into blatant hatred. Today, as has been the case for thousands of years, Jews are subjected to hate and bigotry. Islamophobia is alive and well, too.

If the Trump administration has actual evidence of criminal wrongdoing, it should present its case and give these folks a fair day in court.

But whatever your opinion on the protests, punishing someone for their speech is wrong. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from restricting people’s rights to speech, even noncitizens.

That right extends to speech that others find disagreeable or even indefensible. If it didn’t, then the right wouldn’t be worth much.

As our U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal said this month: “Disagreeing with the president is not a crime. Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and all the other students unjustly and illegally detained by ICE must be freed.”

Unfortunately, these violations of due process don’t stop with campus protests.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to his home country of El Salvador by mistake on March 15 in what the Trump administration called an “administrative error.” Abrego Garcia is legally protected by a 2019 court order that specifically blocks him from being sent back to El Salvador, as he fled the country to escape gang violence.

On April 10, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Abrego Garcia’s removal was illegal and ordered the U.S. to facilitate his release from custody in El Salvador.

The Trump administration claims Garcia was an “active member” of the criminal organization MS-13, citing a determination by an immigration judge based on the testimony of a “past, proven and reliable” confidential informant. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers deny that claim and say the U.S. has provided no evidence to support it.

We condemn these actions by the Trump administration and call on the White House to uphold the right to due process. But we also reject calls to violence, even implicit or tongue-in-cheek, such as a sign raised at last weekend’s protest on Vashon which read “Make Marksmanship Great Again.”

Now is the time for a principled, organized resistance against the actions of this White House, not sporadic acts of violent revenge which risk further inflaming hatred on all sides.

We must act with intention, because for those targeted by Trump, due process is overdue.