A Turkish regional and doctoral student at Tufts University have been detained by federal officials without giving an explanation, according to her attorney’s statement on Wednesday.
In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, attorney Mahsa Khanbabai claimed that Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had only left her home in Somerville to meet with friends on Tuesday evening when she was detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials.
The Associated Press obtained a video that shows six persons taking away Ozturk’s cellphone while she yells and is handcuffed, with their heads covered.
In the movie, members of the group are reportedly heard saying,” We’re the police.”
A person is reportedly yelling,” Why are you hiding your encounters?”
Khanbabai claimed that Ozturk, who is Muslim, was meeting friends for iftar, a dinner that breaks a Ramadan fast at twilight.
We have not been able to contact her because we are not aware of her movements. No charges against Rumeysa to time are known to us, according to Khanbabai in a speech. According to Khanbabai, Ozturk is able to experiment in the United States on a card.
Relatives said they were left tripped up by the imprisonment, which occurred at 5:30 p.m. on a personal block.” This isn’t common safety, it’s intimidation.
Michael Mathis, a 32-year-old application expert whose surveillance camera captured the imprisonment, said,” It looked like a kidnapping.” They come up to her and begin grabbing her with their heads covered. They are obscuring their heads. They are traveling in unknown cars.
Sunil Kumar, chairman of Tufts University, stated in a statement on Wednesday that the institution had learned of reports that a foreign student scholar had been detained and that his student’s visa had been suspended.
According to Kumar,” The school had no prior knowledge of this incident and did not give national authorities any information prior to the incident.”
Although Kumar did not identify the scholar, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences spokesman Patrick Collins confirmed that Ozturk is a graduate pupil.
Ayanna Pressley, a Democratic U.S. representative, described the arrest as” a horrible infraction of Rumeysa’s legal right to due process and free speech.”
Pressley issued a statement, saying that” she may be instantly released.” ” We won’t walk by as the Trump Administration continues to kidnap individuals who have legal status and violate our fundamental rights,” the statement read.
The movie was described as “disturbing,” according to Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
According to what we currently know, it is alarming that the federal government chose to raid and apprehend her, allegedly targeting a law-abiding personal because of her political opinions, she said. This is not coercion that will be closely examined in court, but rather it is public health.
The state was given until Friday to explain why Ozturk was being detained by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in an order issued. Additionally, Talwani forbade Ozturk from moving outside the District of Massachusetts without giving 48 hours ‘ advance notice.
However, as of Wednesday night, the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana, had listed her on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s website defendant locater program.
A top DHS official confirmed Ozturk’s arrest and the end of her card.
According to DHS and ( Immigration and Customs Enforcement ) studies, Ozturk was involved in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign criminal firm that enjoys the killing of Americans. A card is a pleasure, not a straight. Supporting jihadists who murder American is a justification for the suspension of visa issuance. The director told the AP that this is” sensible safety.”
She’s not spoken poorly to people, according to Ozturk, one of four students who co-authored an op-ed part in The Tufts Daily last March criticizing the school’s reply to its community union Senate resolutions that demanded that Tufts “acknowledge the Arab genocide,” share its investments and divest from businesses with direct or indirect ties to Israel.
Friends claimed Ozturk was no otherwise actively involved in Israeli protests. However, after the op-ed was published, Canary Mission, a site that claims it documents persons who “promote contempt of the United States, Israel, and Jews on North American college colleges,” published her title, photo, and work history. Ozturk’s even other instance of “anti-Israel engagement” was the op-ed, which was cited.
Additionally, students and faculty abroad have recently been denied entry to the United States or given visas because they have protested or publicly endorsed Palestinians. A rarely used lawful legislation that authorizes the secretary of state to revoke permits for noncitizens who might pose a threat to international policy interests has been cited by President Donald Trump‘s administration.
On Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered in a Somerville area to help Ozturk, with speech after speaker requesting her release and accusing both major political parties of failing to protect refugees and stand up for Palestinians.
The crowd chanted,” Free Rumeysa Ozturk now,” along with popular protest chants like” Free, free Palestine.” Many gathered both holding Palestinian flags and homemade signs in support of her and against ICE.
According to an alumni spotlight article in 2021, Ozturk graduated with a master’s degree from the Developmental Psychology program at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York before enrolling at Tufts.
Reyyan Bilge, a friend and psychology professor at Northeastern University, described Ozturk as a” soft spoken, kind, and gentle soul” who was unaffected by the protests on campus.
Before working together on cognitive research and co-publishing papers, the two first met at Istanbul Sehir University, where Bilge oversaw her thesis. After Ozturk arrived in the United States to continue her studies on a Fulbright Scholarship at Columbia in 2018, they remained close.
