Security personnel look at a Pro-Palestinian encampment as they monitor the Columbia University campus during early morning hours of April 26, 2024 in New York City. (Credit: Alex Kent/AFP)
BOSTON — U.S. federal immigration authorities arrested and detained Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk on Tuesday, and revoked her visa, in the latest case of the Trump administration's suppression of the pro-Palestinian movement on university campuses.
Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University who is studying legally under a visa, was detained by a group of six masked Department of Homeland Security agents as she was walking to iftar on Tuesday and has been in detention since. According to a legal document reviewed by AFP, Ozturk filed a request asking authorities to explain the legal basis for her arrest,
“We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her." Ozturk's lawyer said in a statement on Wednesady. "No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of.”
On Thursday, Ozturk's lawyer learned that she had been taken into custody near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, in response to that lawsuit, ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to not move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice and to keep her in the state for at least 48 hours after.
Representatives for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Republican U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has targeted international students as it seeks to crack down on immigration, including ramping up immigration arrests and sharply restricting border crossings.
Trump and his top diplomat, Marco Rubio, in particular, have pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters, accusing them of supporting Hamas militants, for posing hurdles for U.S. foreign policy and for being "antisemitic."
Ozturk, 30, is a Fulbright Scholar and student in Tufts’ doctoral program for Child Study and Human Development, according to her LinkedIn, and had previously studied at Columbia University in New York.
Last year, Ozturk co-authored an op-ed in the university’s student paper, the Tufts Daily, that criticized the school's response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide."
She was in the county on an F-1 visa, which allows a student to live in the United States while studying, according to her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, and was detained while "heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast."
"Based on patterns we are seeing across the country, her exercising her free speech rights appear to have played a role in her detention," Khanbabai said.
Advocates are planning a rally later Wednesday in Somerville, calling the case the first known instance of a student activist being detained in the Boston area by federal immigration officials.
She was taken into custody less than three weeks after Mahmoud Khalil, student protester at Columbia University and lawful permanent resident, was similarly arrested. He is challenging his detention after Trump, without evidence, accused him of supporting Hamas, which Khalil denies.
Federal immigration officials are also seeking to detain a South Korean-born Columbia University student, who is a legal permanent U.S. resident and has participated in pro-Palestinian protests, a move blocked by the courts for now.
A Lebanese doctor and assistant professor at Brown University in Rhode Island this month was denied re-entry to the U.S. and deported to Lebanon after Trump's administration alleged her phone contained photos "sympathetic" to Hezbollah. Dr. Rasha Alawieh said she does not support the militant group but held regard for its slain leader because of her religion.
Trump's administration has also targeted students at Cornell University in New York and Georgetown University in Washington.
Reporting by Nate Raymond and Susan Heavey, Editing by William Maclean, Alexandra Hudson