Returning from visiting two students who are being held in separate detention facilities in Louisiana, U.S. Rep. James McGovern said what he saw firsthand is individuals who are being imprisoned because of their political views.

“This is beyond the pale,” McGovern said in a phone interview Wednesday, after getting back from a daylong trip. “This is a modern-day McCarthyism we’re witnessing here.”

McGovern joined two Democratic colleagues from the Massachusetts delegation, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, as well as U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-Louisiana, and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, in meeting with Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk and Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.

Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student and former Fulbright scholar, was detained after co-authoring a campus newspaper op-ed about Gaza, while Khalil was taken into custody for his role as a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead protests on campus last spring.

“What’s happening to Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil is a chilling and dangerous violation of their human rights,” McGovern said. “They’ve committed no crimes, they’ve been charged with no offenses and they’ve broken no laws.”

Instead, it’s about the Trump administration not agreeing with how these students have expressed themselves politically.

“Let’s not mince words: They are political prisoners — held in detention by a government which seeks to punish them for their views and silence their speech. That is immoral and wrong,” said McGovern, who co-chairs the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.

McGovern said he is demanding due process for them since they have so far been denied their rights, including Khalil not being allowed to visit his newborn child in New York. It is critical to continue shining the light and demanding the Trump administration back off, he said.

The best way to deal with the situation is to raise awareness, while also filing amicus briefs for court proceedings with human rights organizations. Normally McGovern would work with a congressional oversight committee to expose truth and make sure justice is done, but this isn’t happening with a GOP-led Congress.

He has also found Secretary of State Marco Rubio has changed since when he was a Republican senator from Florida, and worked with McGovern on ensuring human rights protections in China.

Now, he said, Rubio is acting like a thug.

“When it comes to the United States, Marco Rubio is behaving like the Chinese government behaves,” McGovern said. “He’s willing to turn a blind eye to what’s happening in our own country.”

McGovern has been advocating for others as well, sending a letter earlier in April to both the Departments of State and Homeland Security seeking answers to the recent revocation of visas for 13 international students at the University of Massachusetts, followed by the removal of their student statuses. But no response has yet been made, aside from acknowledgment the letter was received.

McGovern compared the situation to what happens in China, Russia, El Salvador and North Korea. “That is authoritarianism, plain and simple,” McGovern said.

“It’s not the way people are supposed to be treated in the United States of America,” McGovern said, noting that conditions in the detention centers are not good.

Trump is weaponizing the government to who he disagrees with or writing things he doesn’t like, he said.

“Their arbitrary detention and deprivation of due process is a violation not only of their constitutional rights, but also their rights under international human rights law. This starts with Rümeysa and Mahmoud — but it ends with you. Now is the time to speak out before it is too late. Unless we fight back, this administration will continue weaponizing the government to violate the human rights of those who dare to disagree. We cannot and will not accept this as the new normal.

“This is not about Democrat or Republican,” McGovern said. “This is about our country and what kind of country we want to be.”

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.