On the evening of March 25, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents near her off-campus apartment in Somerville. Video footage shows plainclothes officers, with their faces covered, grabbing Ozturk and forcing her into a van.
Ozturk is also a Fulbright Scholar, and recently graduated with her master’s in developmental psychology from Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Ozturk is in the United States on an F-1 student visa. In an email sent late Tuesday night to the Tufts community, Sunil Kumar, the university’s president, wrote that the institution had been told her visa was terminated.
Kumar wrote that the university is “seek[ing] to confirm whether that information is true. The university has no additional information at this time about the cause or circumstances of the student’s apprehension and is attempting to learn more about the incident.”
Ozturk was one of four co-authors in an opinion editorial in the Tufts Daily, the university’s student newspaper, published nearly a year ago. The piece argued that Tufts’ president, Kumar, did not adequately respond to the Tufts Community Union Senate’s demands, after the Tufts community Union Senate only passed three out of four resolutions.
These resolutions included calling on Kumar to apologize for previous statements, a university-wide acknowledgement of a genocide in Palestine, disclosing investments and divesting from companies with ties to Israel. The authors wrote, “Unfortunately, the University’s response to the Senate resolutions has been wholly inadequate and dismissive of the Senate, the collective voice of the student body.”
“ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege, not a right,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in a statement. Many believe Ozturk’s op-ed was the activity in question.
Though Judge Indira Talwani, a U.S. District Court Judge in Massachusetts, ordered that Ozturk should not be removed from the state, federal agents had already transported Ozturk out of state to an ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana before her lawyer could raise legal concerns about her detention.
Reyyan Bilge, an assistant teaching professor of psychology at Northeastern, met and taught Ozturk in Turkey. Bilge says she happily wrote Ozturk several recommendation letters for graduate school.
“She was overall, very decent and very studious. One of the most exceptional students that I’ve had, actually, over the years,” Bilge said in an interview with The Huntington News.
Aside from her devotion to her studies, Bilge also explained that Ozturk is passionate about human rights, animal rights and children’s rights and that anyone who knows her can attest to her character.
“I was just talking to another colleague from Turkey, and he said, ‘I can’t believe that this is happening to Rumeysa, of all the people in the world,’” she said.
On the evening of March 26, following Ozturk’s detainment, students and advocates rallied in support of Ozturk at Powder House Square in Somerville. The Palestinian Youth Movement organized the event in cooperation with numerous other organizations including Jewish Voice for Peace Boston, or JVP.
Eli Gerzon, an organizer with JVP and a digital marketing consultant based in Greater Boston, said it was critical to organize a large gathering after Ozturk’s detainment to send a message of resistance to President Donald Trump’s administration.
“The way we fight fascism is by turning out in huge numbers to say, ‘Hell no,’” Gerzon said. “We’re not going to let fascists terrorize everyone and take away precious members of our communities [like Ozturk].”
Gerzon said it is likely that similar detainments will continue in the future and expressed an urgent need to unite to protect local community members who could be targeted.
“The Trump administration is going to go as far as they can and we have to make sure that they can’t go any further than they have,” they said. “That’s why we need to keep organizing. We need to keep showing up for each other and never believe people who try to dehumanize immigrants, Palestinians, Muslims or Jews.”
Gerzon emphasized that while Ozturk’s detainment was shocking, people in the community should avoid panicking and be aware of the resources available to prevent detainment by ICE. Resources highlighted at the rally included the Luce Defense Hotline, a phone number set up by the Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts to report and verify potential ICE sightings in the state.
“People shouldn’t hesitate to reach out for help. You’re not alone, no matter what your situation is,” Gerzon said. “We need to keep being cautious but not being fearful or alarmist.”
Bushra Gur, a first grade teacher based in Walpole who is also from Turkey, said she felt compelled to attend the rally after the detainment of Ozturk and the March 8 detainment of Columbia University graduate student and U.S. permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil for speaking out for Palestine.
“I want justice for everyone, including Rumeysa [Ozturk] and Mahmoud Khalil. … These gatherings give me hope,” Gur said.
While such detainments of legal residents and visa holders who advocate for Palestine continue, Gur said she still has faith that things can change.
“I hope [detainments] end, that’s what we wish for, but as I see it, it is getting worse,” Gur said. “There’s a lot of things I hope, but I wish for a world where no kids die [in Gaza] and there is justice and freedom for all.”
Karsten Frey, a store clerk from Somerville who also attended the rally, said the nature of these detainments should be recognized as a constitutional violation.
“This is an escalation. They’re going after people with green cards now and people with citizenship are next, probably. People with permanent residency aren’t safe. It’s a crackdown on free speech,” Frey said. “Free speech applies to everyone, not just citizenship holders, and we have to stand up for each other. Otherwise, as we let one person go, anyone could be next.”
Frey also warned that students are being targeted, with both Ozturk and Khalil being students in higher education. He said he believes attacks on talented students like Ozturk are a strategy to expand federal power.
“The Trump administration wants to crack down on students and higher education,” Frey said. “Education helps you to think critically, and so as an authoritarian and fascist, [Trump] doesn’t want people to think critically and doesn’t want people to be educated.”
Bilge explained that many people, including the United States government, seem to ignore that the op-ed Ozturk co-authored was addressed to Kumar, not a member of the U.S. government.
“[The op-ed] was not directed to the U.S. president, or the U.S. government or Israel. It was not directed to anyone else but to the Tufts president to talk about issues with the Tufts Senate,” she said.
Bilge also added that when the op-ed was published one year ago, Ozturk, and the other students, did not receive any penalties or disciplinary action.
Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk’s attorney, has filed a habeas corpus petition, which is used when courts are attempting to determine if detention is lawful.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has called the arrest part of an “alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties.” In a statement on Wednesday, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said the footage was disturbing, and that her office will continue monitoring the incident.
“Based on what we know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views. This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court,” Campbell said.
Trump’s current “border czar,” Tom Homan, who the president tasked with managing deportation of undocumented immigrants, recently visited Boston and defended ICE arrests, claiming the agency and administration is targeting only serious criminals.
Northeastern law professor Rachel E. Rosenbloom, who specializes in immigration law and policy, expressed her concerns about the precedent Ozturk’s detainment sets.
“The arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk and other students at campuses around the country represents an alarming escalation in the authoritarian tactics of the Trump administration,” Rosenbloom said in an email statement to The News. “Universities should be speaking out against this attack on our students and this McCarthyite weaponization of immigration law.”
Rally attendees and advocates like Bilge are speaking up, and she stressed that others should too.
“I want everyone, not just internationals, but every American to speak up for this,” Bilge said. “This is not what America stands for. This is not freedom of speech. … If we do not speak up for this, then it’s going to continue, this backlash, and this witch hunting and this smear campaign is going to continue.”
