A Tufts University student is being held at an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, and there are growing questions about how she was taken into custody and the timeline of sending her out of state.
One major issue is whether federal authorities defied the court order to keep Rumeysa Ozturk in Massachusetts, as it was issued just hours after her arrest Tuesday night.
Video shows Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student from Turkey, screaming as plain-clothes agents surrounded her and grabbed her on a Somerville sidewalk just off campus before taking her away.
Hundreds of supporters gathered in Somerville to protest the arrest of Ph.D. candidate Rumeysa Ozturk, who is in the custody of ICE in Louisiana.
Ozturk’s attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law, said she maintained a valid F-1 visa – that’s now been terminated.
On Tuesday, a federal court judge ordered that Ozturk not be removed from Massachusetts without notice. Yet, according to her attorney, they couldn’t locate her for hours. It wasn’t immediately clear when she was moved to Louisiana — if it was before or after the judge’s order blocking her removal.
Tufts students say they believe Ozturk was targeted for an article she wrote with three other students, calling for the university to divest from companies directly tied to Israel.
The Department of Homeland Security released a statement accusing Ozturk of engaging in activities in support of Hamas, saying in part, “a visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.” They have not provided any evidence or explained how Ozturk supported the group.
Many vehemently disagree.
“We need to call what happened to Rameysa by what it is — state-sanctioned political kidnapping,” an attendee at a rally on behalf of Ozturk said Wednesday night.
“I think what we saw with the abduction of a neighbor by federal agent was just really disturbing and brought home the crisis that we are seeing across the country. This national attack on immigrants, on people of color, on people for their political beliefs,” said Zac Bears, Medford City Council president.
Rumeysa Ozturk is being held at an ICE facility in Louisiana after being taken into custody Tuesday.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the arrest “disturbing.”
“Based on what we now 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,” Campbell said. “This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court.”
Both the university and the attorney general say they’re working to ensure she has due process.
The university notes that it has a protocol to notify the Tufts University Police Department and inform the dispatcher in the event of “government officials who arrive on campus for an unannounced site visit.” People are urged to call 617-627-3030 to report such an incident.
