On Wednesday, the Associated Press published harrowing footage showing ICE agents arresting Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student and vocal critic of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, at Tufts University. In the video, Ozturk, who’s a Turkish citizen but holds a valid student visa, is ambushed by six people purporting to be officers near her home. Within seconds, Ozturk was abruptly stripped of her phone, handcuffed, and violently put in an unmarked vehicle by the individuals, whose faces are obscured by sunglasses, hoods and ski masks. The arrest, which took place the day before the video went viral, has not only sparked outrage but further crystallized the fact that the Trump administration is actively targeting immigrants who are dissenters of Israel’s war on Palestine on campuses across the country.
Ozturk is currently detained at the South Louisiana ICE processing center, according to the government’s ICE detainee locator page, and, per Reuters, her visa has been terminated. On Wednesday, Ozturk’s attorney’s filed a petition in federal court challenging the legality of her detention and demanding that she remain in Massachusetts. Chillingly, Ozturk had already been transported out of state.
While charges have not been filed against Ozturk, an investigation led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is a part of ICE, has since accused Ozturk of engaging “in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” Notably, the DHS has yet to provide evidence that Ozturk was a supporter of Hamas.
“A visa is a privilege, not a right,” a DHS spokesperson told the AP. “Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security.”
Ozturk’s brother, Asim Ozturk, has since vocalized his belief that the detention was due to an op-ed she wrote in March 2024. The piece, which was published by the university’s newspaper, criticized Tufts’ response to a student government group’s demand that the school divest from companies with ties to Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza.
“Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide,” the op-ed reads.
“Apart from expressing her opinion within the framework of freedom of expression without engaging in any provocative or aggressive action regarding the Palestine issue, she has not taken any action,” Asim wrote in a statement in Turkish, posted on Twitter on Thursday. “It seems that she has been subjected to the activities of ICE, which has been on a witch hunt in the post-Trump period, against those who support Palestine.”
Like many pro-Palestinian activists, including Mahmoud Khalil, Ozturk’s personal information had also been entered into the database of Canary Mission, a group that claims to combat hatred against Jews on college campuses by doxing students and professors who are vocally anti-genocide.
Meanwhile, Tufts University officials claimed the school was not aware of the arrest until after it had already taken place. In a written statement shared by CNN, the university’s President Sunil Kumar said that Tufts “did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event, and the location where this took place is not affiliated with Tufts University.”
“We recognize how frightening and distressing this situation is for [Ozturk], her loved ones, and the larger community here at Tufts, especially our international students, staff, and faculty who may be feeling vulnerable or unsettled by these events,” Kumar added. On Wednesday, over a thousand people protested Ozturk’s detention at a park on the edge of the campus.
Ozturk is one of many foreign national (and anti-genocide) scholars being targeted by the Trump administration, and the third to be detained in Louisiana. Others include Mahmoud Khalil, a legal resident of the U.S. and recent graduate of Columbia University, who was arrested in front of his pregnant wife. During Khalil’s time at Columbia, he was a vocal pro-Palestine student activist and a leader in organizing student encampments to protest Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Columbia’s ties to Israel. Khalil served as a key negotiator with the university during the encampment protests last spring, which drew horrific police violence sanctioned by the university. Additionally, Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University fellow, was arrested in front of his wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, and their family last week. Similar to Ozturk’s arrest, the officers who detained him were wearing facial coverings.
On Thursday, news of another unlawful arrest made at the University of Alabama was reported by the school’s newspaper. Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from Iran studying mechanical engineering, was taken into custody on Tuesday, the same day of Ozturk’s arrest. According to CBS News, Doroudi held an F-1 visa that had expired six months ago. However, per the university’s advice, he was able to stay in the country so long as he was enrolled as a student. Further information about his detention remains terrifyingly unknown at this time.
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
