Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yelled and was handcuffed [GETTY]
A Turkish national who is a doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by federal agents without explanation, her lawyer said on Wednesday.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville to meet with friends Tuesday night when she was detained by US Department of Homeland Security agents, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court.
Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yelled and was handcuffed.
“We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video.
A man is heard on camera asking, “Why are you hiding your faces?”
Khanbabai said Ozturk, who is Muslim, was meeting friends for iftar, a meal that breaks a fast at sunset during Ramadan.
“We 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,” Khanbabai said in a statement. Ozturk has a visa allowing her to study in the United States, Khanbabai said.
‘This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation’
Neighbours said they were left rattled by the arrest, which took place at 5:30pm on a residential block.
“It looked like a kidnapping,” said Michael Mathis, a 32-year-old software engineer whose surveillance camera picked up the footage of the arrest.
“They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They’re covering their faces. They’re in unmarked vehicles.”
Tufts University President Sunil Kumar issued a statement on Wednesday, stating that the school had received reports that federal authorities had detained an international graduate student and that the student’s visa had 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.
Kumar did not name the student, but Tufts University spokesperson Patrick Collins confirmed that Ozturk is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Democratic US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, in a statement, called the arrest “a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech.”
“She must be immediately released,” she said. “We won’t stand by while the Trump Administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the footage “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,” she said.
“This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinised in court.”
US 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 providing advance notice.
Once notice is given, Ozturk shall not be moved out of the district for at least 48 hours, Talwani wrote.
A senior spokesperson for DHS confirmed Ozturk’s detention and the termination of her visa.
“DHS and (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organisation that relishes the killing of Americans,” the spokesperson told the AP.
“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.”
‘She’s never spoken badly to anyone’
Ozturk was one of four students last March who co-authored an op-ed piece in The Tufts Daily, criticising the university’s response to its community union Senate passing resolutions that demanded Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.
Friends of Ozturk’s said she was not otherwise closely involved in protests against Israel. But after the op-ed was published, her name, photograph and work history were featured by Canary Mission, a website that describes itself as documenting people who “promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” The op-ed was the only cited example of Ozturk’s “anti-Israel activism”.
Students and faculty elsewhere have also recently had visas revoked or were blocked from entering the US because they attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians.
President Donald Trump’s administration has cited a seldom-invoked legal statute that authorises the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to US foreign-policy interests.
Before attending Tufts, Ozturk graduated with a master’s degree from the Developmental Psychology program at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, according to an alumni spotlight article in 2021.
Reyyan Bilge, a psychology professor at Northeastern University and friend of Ozturk, described her as a “soft spoken, kind and gentle soul” who is deeply focused on her research and not closely involved in the campus protests.
The pair first met at Istanbul Sehir University, where Bilge supervised her thesis, before working together on cognitive research and co-publishing papers. They remained close once Ozturk arrived in the United States to continue her studies on a Fulbright Scholarship at Columbia in 2018.
“Over the 10 years I’ve known her, she’s never spoken badly to anyone else, let alone being antisemitic or racist,” Bilge said.
