When a milestone birthday approaches, I ask my doctor to take stock of my overall health and the direction things are moving. As we get along in years, some parts, like our knees and metabolism, start showing wear and tear.
I’ve started noticing the same thing about our country. She’s hit 250. Relatively speaking, this is a very young age for a nation. The country we won our independence from is approaching 1,100 years old.
From this perspective, there’s time to heed the warnings that our most valuable parts — our freedoms and rights — are showing serious signs of trouble.
Consider what happened last month to Paigelynn Gonyea, a Syracuse-area election poll worker. She made national news after federal immigration agents entered the polling place where she was working to question her about an Instagram post.
Two agents presented her with a written notice stating that she “may be in violation of federal law.” In her months-old post from January, it said that ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who was involved in the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother, should be indicted. The Minnesota Star Tribune had already published Ross’ name. There’s no evidence that Gonyea shared any of his private information, such as an address or phone number.
DHS later alleged that Gonyea had published an ICE officer’s address online, but the agency did not provide evidence supporting that allegation. Gonyea denies posting any protected personal information. She has not been charged with any crime.
Imagine being threatened by federal agents, in a polling location, no less, for posting that another government employee involved in killing a citizen should be indicted.
That does not bode well for the health of our First Amendment.
Maybe we could dismiss this as a one-off, but there have been reports over the past year and a half of hundreds of people losing jobs for protected political speech. Some of them have won hefty lawsuits for the violation of their free speech rights.
But it’s a disturbing trend.
This has been happening against a larger backdrop that says we’re headed for trouble. In March of 2025, President Donald Trump issued executive orders punishing law firms that had represented clients or causes he opposed. A federal judge called Trump’s executive order “a shocking abuse of power” stemming from “a personal vendetta.”
Four of the law firms fought back and won.
Judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents have said the administration’s actions have violated or chilled freedom of speech. The administration also threatened to withhold hundreds of millions in federal funds and grants for research universities based on whether they support the government’s ideologies.
Last year, I learned of a shocking attack on free speech in the United States. The country saw surveillance video in which plainclothes federal agents approached a woman walking near her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts. They handcuffed her and took her away in an unmarked vehicle. She was transferred through multiple states before being held in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
What terrible crime did Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, commit? She co-authored an op-ed in the school paper criticizing the university’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza and urging it to consider divestment from companies linked to Israel.
Never in my lifetime had I seen a person in America handcuffed and imprisoned for months for writing an op-ed.
Think about that.
Every American should Google and read her op-ed, which rationally articulates a position held by millions of Americans. In May of 2025, a federal judge ordered her release on bail, finding she had raised substantial First Amendment and due process concerns. It wasn’t until January of this year that an immigration judge ruled that there was no legal basis to deport Ozturk and terminated the removal proceedings.
She completed her Ph.D. at Tufts and returned to Turkey.
Doctors say the body often gives warning signs, like shortness of breath or chest pains, before a major heart attack.
The heart of America, our Constitution, has been sending up red flags.
It’s dangerous to keep ignoring them.
Aisha Sultan is a St. Louis-based journalist who studies parenting in the digital age while trying to keep up with her tech-savvy children. Find her on social media: @AishaS.