US immigration officials arrest Turkish student amid crackdown

SOMERVILLE, Mass.

A Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in the latest action taken against a foreign learner associated with pro-Palestinian campus activism.

Rümeysa Öztürk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on March 25 night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court.

A video appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Özturk's phone as she yells and is handcuffed.

“We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding your faces?”

Khanbabai said Özturk, who is Muslim, was meeting friends for iftar dinner.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order giving the government until March 28 to answer why Öztürk was being detained.

Talwani also ordered that Öztürk not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without 48 hours advance notice.

But as of March 26 evening, the online detainee locator system listed her as being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana.

A senior spokesperson confirmed Öztürk’s detention and the termination of her visa.

Öztürk was one of four students last March who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing 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 said Öztürk 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 “promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.”

The op-ed was the only cited example of “anti-Israel activism” by Öztürk.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley called the arrest “a horrifying violation of Rümeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech.”

"She must be immediately released,” Pressley said in a statement. “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 video “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 scrutinized in court.”

Hundreds of people demonstrated in a park, with speaker after speaker demanding her release and accusing both major political parties of failing to protect immigrants and stand up for Palestinians.

“Free Rümeysa Öztürk now,” the crowd chanted, along with traditional protest slogans such as “Free, free Palestine.” Many held Palestinian flags and homemade signs supporting her and opposing ICE.

The Turkish Embassy in Washington said it was keeping in regular contact with Öztürk’s family, monitoring the situation closely and engaged in “initiatives” with the State Department and ICE.