As Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk made her way to an interfaith center to break the Ramadan fast on Tuesday, plainclothes officers, some masked, descended on her. She screamed as an unmasked officer in a hooded sweatshirt grabbed her, security video shows. Within about a minute, the officers whisked her away in handcuffs.
The widely circulated video of the immigration enforcement officers — who Ozturk’s lawyer said were from the Department of Homeland Security — sent shock waves through Somerville, Massachusetts, with thousands turning out Wednesday in the Boston suburb to demand her release.
Ozturk, a 30-year-old from Turkey, is a Fulbright scholar working on a PhD in child study and human development on an F-1 student visa, her lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in an email. “We should all be horrified at the way DHS spirited away Rumeysa in broad daylight,” she wrote, adding that Ozturk has not been accused of any crime.
A federal district judge, considering a petition from her lawyer, ordered officers on Tuesday not to move the student out of Massachusetts without advance notice. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee locator page showed Ozturk’s location as Louisiana late Wednesday.
“DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” DHS said in an emailed statement, without sharing evidence of the claim or responding to questions about the video. It added that “supporting terrorists” is grounds for visa termination.
President Donald Trump has promised to deport international students he alleges are engaging in “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American” campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza. But critics and lawyers for the students say that they are being targeted for expressing their political beliefs and that the government is trampling on the First Amendment right of free speech.
“Trump sent masked law enforcement officers to arrest Rumeysa Ozturk — a Tufts University grad student with legal status — without a criminal charge,” Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts) wrote on X. “Disappearances like these are part of Trump’s all-out assault on our basic freedoms.”
Ozturk does not appear to have been a leading figure in the pro-Palestinian protests at Tufts, according to the Boston Globe. She co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper in March 2024 criticizing the university’s response to the pro-Palestinian movement. The op-ed, written by four students and endorsed by 32 others, argued against the school’s rejection of student Senate resolutions, which they wrote were an effort “to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell (D) said it was alarming that the Trump administration “chose to ambush” Ozturk. “It looked like a kidnapping,” a neighbor whose camera captured the footage, told the Associated Press.
Annie Lai, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine who specializes in immigrant rights, said some of the officers in the video do not have anything on their clothing — a badge or writing on their vest — that identifies them as law enforcement or government officials.
At one point in the video, an officer says: “We are the police.”
The fact that they did not say they were from DHS or ICE is concerning, Lai said, adding that they didn’t seem to say in the video why she was being taken into custody.
Most of the officers had their faces covered, or they covered them during the arrest.
“This gives people the sense that they can be taken without knowing who is taking them and why. That should be deeply alarming,” Lai said.
The Turkish Embassy said that it was trying with U.S. authorities to ensure that Ozturk’s rights were protected, and that it was updating her family.
Tufts University President Sunil Kumar said the school has learned that Ozturk’s visa has been terminated. “The university had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event,” Kumar said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
University leaders, including Kumar, said the school was offering support to its community. “We recognize how frightening and distressing this situation is for her, her loved ones, and the larger community here at Tufts, especially our international students, staff, and faculty, who may be feeling vulnerable or unsettled by these events” the statement said.
A rally calling for Ozturk’s release was held near the university Wednesday night. More than 2,000 people attended, the Boston Globe reported. Students and neighbors told the newspaper they were shocked by what had happened.
Muslim advocacy groups also called for her immediate release. Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, condemned what she called “the abduction of a young Muslim hijab-wearing scholar by masked federal agents in broad daylight.” The Muslim Public Affairs Council said the arrest sent “a chilling message.”
Ozturk is at least the seventh student or scholar to be caught up this month in the administration’s crackdown related to the Middle East conflict.
Separately, the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association sued the Trump administration this week over what they called its “ideological-deportation policy,” court documents show.
The complaint alleges that its policies “fail to give noncitizen students and faculty fair warning as to what speech and association the government believes to be grounds for arrest, detention, and deportation.”
Sabrina Rodriguez contributed to this report.
