{"id":29157,"date":"2025-03-27T07:58:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T11:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29157"},"modified":"2025-03-27T08:06:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T12:06:00","slug":"ice-detains-international-student-at-tufts-university-in-massachusetts-and-revokes-visa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/03\/27\/ice-detains-international-student-at-tufts-university-in-massachusetts-and-revokes-visa\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE detains international student at Tufts University in Massachusetts and revokes visa"},"content":{"rendered":"

SOMERVILLE, Mass. (AP) \u2014 A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by\u00a0U.S. Department of Homeland Security<\/a>\u00a0agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court.<\/p>\n

Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk\u2019s phone as she yells and is handcuffed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the police,\u201d members of the group are heard saying in the video.<\/p>\n

A man is heard asking, \u201cWhy are you hiding your faces?\u201d<\/p>\n

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In this image taken from security camera video, Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on a street in Sommerville, Mass., Tuesday, March 26, 2025. (Image: AP)<\/figcaption>
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In this image taken from security camera video, Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on a street in Sommerville, Mass., Tuesday, March 26, 2025. (Image: AP)<\/figcaption>
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Khanbabai said Ozturk, who is Muslim, was meeting friends for iftar, a meal that breaks a fast at sunset\u00a0during Ramadan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her. No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of,\u201d Khanbabai said in a statement. Ozturk has a visa allowing her to study in the United States, Khanbabai said.<\/p>\n

\u2018This isn\u2019t public safety, it\u2019s intimidation\u2019<\/h2>\n

Neighbors said they were rattled by the arrest, which happened at 5:30 p.m. on a residential block.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looked like a kidnapping,\u201d said Michael Mathis, a 32-year-old software engineer whose surveillance camera captured the arrest. \u201cThey approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They\u2019re covering their faces. They\u2019re in unmarked vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tufts University President Sunil Kumar said in a statement that the school learned that authorities detained an international graduate student and the student\u2019s visa had been terminated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event,\u201d Kumar said.<\/p>\n

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Hundreds of people gather in Somerville, Mass., on March 26, 2025, to demand the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, who was arrested by federal agents Tuesday night. (Image: AP \/ Michael Casey)<\/figcaption>
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Kumar did not name the student, but university spokesperson Patrick Collins confirmed that Ozturk is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley called the arrest \u201ca horrifying violation of Rumeysa\u2019s constitutional rights to due process and free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe must be immediately released,\u201d Pressley said in a statement. \u201cWe won\u2019t stand by while the Trump Administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the video \u201cdisturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBased 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,\u201d she said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t public safety, it\u2019s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Court says not to remove Ozturk from the state, but she is listed as being held in Louisiana<\/h2>\n

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order giving the government until Friday to answer why Ozturk was being detained. Talwani also ordered that Ozturk not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without 48 hours advance notice.<\/p>\n

But as of Wednesday evening, the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement\u2019s online detainee locator system listed her as being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana.<\/p>\n

A senior DHS spokesperson confirmed Ozturk\u2019s detention and the termination of her visa.<\/p>\n

\u201cDHS and (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) 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. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security,\u201d the spokesperson told the AP.<\/p>\n

Ozturk cowrote article criticizing university response to Palestinian issues<\/h2>\n

Ozturk was one of four students last March who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing the university\u2019s response to its community union Senate passing resolutions that demanded Tufts \u201cacknowledge the Palestinian genocide,\u201d disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.<\/p>\n

Friends said Ozturk was not otherwise closely involved in protests against Israel. But after the piece was published, her name, photo and work history were featured by Canary Mission, a website that says it documents people who \u201cpromote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.\u201d The op-ed was the only cited example of \u201canti-Israel activism\u201d by Ozturk.<\/p>\n

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Students and faculty elsewhere also have recently had visas revoked or been blocked from entering the U.S. because they\u00a0attended demonstrations<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0publicly expressed support for Palestinians<\/a>. President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests.<\/p>\n

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Hundreds of people gather in Somerville, Mass., on March 26, 2025, to demand the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, who was arrested by federal agents Tuesday night. (Image: AP \/ Michael Casey)<\/figcaption>
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Hundreds of people gather in Somerville, Mass., on March 26, 2025, to demand the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, who was arrested by federal agents Tuesday night. (Image: AP \/ Michael Casey)<\/figcaption>
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Hundreds of people gather in Somerville, Mass., on March 26, 2025, to demand the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, who was arrested by federal agents Tuesday night. (Image: AP \/ Michael Casey)<\/figcaption>
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Supporters rally in Somerville<\/h2>\n

Hundreds of people demonstrated in a park later Wednesday, with speaker after speaker demanding her release and accusing both major political parties of failing to protect immigrants and stand up for Palestinians.<\/p>\n

\u201cFree Rumeysa Ozturk now,\u201d the crowd chanted, along with traditional protest slogans such as \u201cFree, free Palestine.\u201d Many held Palestinian flags and homemade signs supporting her and opposing ICE.<\/p>\n

Zoi Andalcio, a Somerville business owner, said he came out with his wife and 3-year-old son to speak against the \u201cmaddening\u201d arrest of Ozturk and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m outraged like everybody else about these disappearances, kidnappings of legal noncitizens, who may or may not have spoken out against the atrocious foreign policy of the United States government,\u201d Andalcio said.<\/p>\n

Roz Nazzaro, who held a sign that read \u201cHands Off,\u201d said she fears the country is heading into an era of \u201cNazism\u201d in which just disappear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no distinction between undocumented immigrants, documented immigrants, green cards,\u201d said Nazzaro, a retired college administrator from Winchester, Massachusetts. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be the citizens next, if you\u2019re the wrong color, wear a hijab.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018She\u2019s never spoken badly to anyone\u2019<\/h2>\n

Before attending Tufts, Ozturk obtained a master\u2019s from the Developmental Psychology program at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, according to an alumni spotlight article in 2021.<\/p>\n

Reyyan Bilge, a psychology professor at Northeastern University and friend, described Ozturk as a \u201csoft spoken, kind and gentle soul,\u201d deeply focused on research and not closely involved in the campus protests.<\/p>\n

The two first met at Istanbul Sehir University, where Bilge supervised her thesis, before working on cognitive research and publishing papers together. They remained close after Ozturk arrived in the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the 10 years I\u2019ve known her, she\u2019s never spoken badly to anyone else, let alone being antisemitic or racist,\u201d Bilge said.<\/p>\n

Turkish diplomats contact State Department and ICE<\/h2>\n

The Turkish Embassy in Washington said it was keeping in regular contact with Ozturk\u2019s family, monitoring the situation closely and engaged in \u201cinitiatives\u201d with the State Department and ICE.<\/p>\n

It added in a statement on the social platform X that it was making \u201cevery effort\u201d to provide consular services and legal support to protect its citizens\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

Source: \u00a0\"Associated<\/a> apnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOMERVILLE, Mass. (AP) \u2014 A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by\u00a0U.S. Department of Homeland Security\u00a0agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[11152,11148,10371,5952,1333,342,11149,11151,11147,11132,11150],"class_list":{"0":"post-29157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-basile","10":"tag-boston-federal-court","11":"tag-hamas","12":"tag-ice","13":"tag-louisiana","14":"tag-massachusetts","15":"tag-sommerville","16":"tag-south-louisiana-ice-processing-center","17":"tag-tufts-university","18":"tag-us-department-of-homeland-security","19":"tag-us-immigration-and-custom-enforcement","20":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29161,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29157\/revisions\/29161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}