Ozturk is a student at Tufts’s doctoral program for Child Study and Human Development, according to her LinkedIn page, and she received a master’s from the Teachers College at Columbia University.
The LinkedIn profile says that Ozturk is a Fulbright Scholar who’d been studying at Tufts since 2021, and had previously worked as a research assistant at Boston University in 2016. Ozturk was working as graduate research assistant, her LinkedIn says, at the time of her arrest.
In a statement provided through her attorney, community activists said Ozturk was “ambushed” by ICE agents on the way to an Iftar dinner with friends after leaving her Somerville apartment. Neighbors reported that unmarked cars had allegedly been surveilling the location for two days before apprehending her on the street, the statement said.
Activists said they did not know yet where Ozturk was being detained.
Ozturk was on a “visa status,” which the university has been told was “terminated,” said Tufts President Sunil Kumar in an email to the campus community.
Federal authorities haven’t commented on Ozturk’s arrest.
Her attorney said her photo and other identifying information were recently posted on Canary Mission, a website that documents individuals and organizations it views as antisemitic. Pro-Palestinian protesters say the site has doxxed and targeted them.
Earlier this month, immigration officials arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student and legal permanent resident, over his role in student demonstrations at Columbia University last year. Another Columbia student fled her on-campus apartment for Canada after abruptly learning her visa had been revoked. And a doctor at Brown University’s medical school was deported after arriving at Logan International Airport, despite a court ordering her held in Massachusetts.
Yes.
Last year, Ozturk co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts Daily, the university’s student paper, criticizing the university’s response to the Pro-Palestinian movement and efforts by members of the student body to sever the university’s ties to Israel.
The opinion piece cited what Ozturk and her three coauthors called “accusations against Israel [that] include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.”
That’s unclear.
In a three-page order issued Tuesday, US District Court Judge Indira Talwani ordered ICE not to move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without prior notice. Talwani wrote that while the judiciary usually does not have a role in deportations, she does have authority under the habeas petition filed by Ozturk’s lawyer to maintain the status quo.
Ozturk “shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” the judge ordered.
The judge also ordered ICE to submit a written explanation for relocating Ozturk and notify the court 48 hours before any effort takes place to allow the judge time to review the added information. ICE “shall state the reason why the government believes that such a movement is necessary and should not be stayed pending further court proceedings,” the order says.
Talwani ordered ICE officials to respond to the habeas petition by Friday.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
