The US immigration authorities arrested and revoked the visa of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University near Boston who expressed his support to the Palestinians during the War of Israel in Gaza.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, left him on Tuesday evening in Somerville to meet friends and quickly break her Ramadan when she was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Internal Security, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition tabled before the Federal Boston Court.
Ozturk supporters say that his detention is the first known arrest in the immigration of a student from the Boston region engaged in such activism to be carried out under President Donald Trump.
His administration has detained or sought to hold several students born abroad who are legally in the United States and were involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Actions have been condemned as an assault against freedom of expression, although the Trump administration maintains that certain protests are anti -Semitic and can undermine American foreign policy.
The spokesperson for the American internal security department, Tricia McLaughlin, in a position on X, said that the authorities have determined that Ozturk “is committed to Hamas supporting activities, a foreign terrorist organization that savor the murder of the Americans.”
“A visa is a privilege, not a right,” said McLaughlin.
Rumesya Ozturk is a student graduated from the National University and the Turkish University, who has granted the privilege of being in this country on a visa.
DHS + ICE surveys have found that Ozturk is committed to Hamas supporting activities, a foreign terrorist organization that savor the murder of … pic.twitter.com/3sbe6yo8db
– Tricia McLaughlin (@triciaohio) March 26, 2025
She did not specify what activities. But the arrest of Ozturk occurred a year after the student co-wrote an opinion article in the school newspaper of the school, The Tufts Daily, which criticized the response of tufts to calls by students to depart from companies linked to Israel and to “recognize the Palestinian genocide”.
“Based on the models we see across the country, his exercise of his rights to freedom of expression seems to have played a role in his detention,” said Khanbabai.
‘Looked like an abduction’
After the arrest of Ozturk, Khanbabai filed a legal action on Tuesday evening, arguing that she had been illegally detained, which prompted the American district judge Indira Talwani to Boston that evening to order us from American immigration and the application of customs (ICE) not to move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without at least 48 hours.
Despite the judge’s ordinance on Wednesday afternoon, Khanbabai in a motion said that she had not been able to locate her client in New England and that he had just been informed by an office of the American senator that Ozturk was transferred to Louisiana. She asked for an order from the court forcing ice to allow access to Ozturk.
The student’s detention was sentenced by Democratic legislators, including American senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, who said that “arrest is the last of an alarming model to stifle civil freedoms”. A rally in his support was expected later on Wednesday in Somerville.
The neighbors said they had been shaken by the arrest, which took place at 5.30 p.m. on a residential block.
“It looked like an abduction,” said Michael Mathis, a 32 -year -old software engineer whose surveillance camera has picked up the arrest images. “They approach her and start catching her with her face covered. They cover their face. They are in unmarked vehicles. “
The Trump administration has targeted international students while seeking to repress immigration, in particular by accelerating immigration arrests and strongly restoring border passages.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in particular, have committed to expeling foreign pro-Palestinian demonstrators, accusing them of supporting Hamas activists, of making obstacles to American foreign policy and of being anti-Semitic.
The demonstrators, including certain Jewish groups, claim that the administration wrongly confuses their criticism of Israel and its support for Palestinian rights with anti -Semitism and support for Hamas.
Target university students
Ozturk is a Fulbright and student scholarship holder in the tufts doctoral program for children studying and human development, according to his LinkedIn profile, and had previously studied at Columbia University in New York.
It was in the country on an F-1 visa, which allows students to live in the United States during studies, according to the trial.
In a statement, TUFTS president Sunil Kumar said that the school had no prior knowledge of the arrest, which he recognized would be “painful for certain members of our community, in particular members of our international community”.
Ozturk was placed in police custody less than three weeks after Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of the University of Columbia and a legal permanent resident, was arrested in the same way. He disputes his detention after Trump, without evidence, accused him of supporting Hamas, which Khalil denies.
Federal immigration officials also seek to hold a student from Columbia University of South Korean origin who is a legal permanent American resident and has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, a decision blocked by the courts for the moment.
A Lebanese doctor and deputy professor at Brown University of Rhode Island this month was refused to return to the United States and expelled in Lebanon after the Trump administration alleged that his phone contained “sympathetic” photos in Hezbollah. Rasha Alawieh said she does not support the group but takes into account her chief killed because of her religion.
The Trump administration also targeted students at Cornell University in New York and the University of Georgetown in Washington.
