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Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student in Boston detained on Tuesday by federal immigration agents in response to her pro-Palestinian activism, was on Wednesday evening being detained at the South Louisiana Ice processing center, according to the government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainee locator page.
The transfer of Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, appeared to violate a federal court order from Tuesday, which directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Ice to give the court 48 hours’ notice before attempting to take her out of Massachusetts.
After Ozturk’s transfer to Louisiana emerged from the online locator, the federal judge ordered DHS and Ice to respond to an emergency request in court on Wednesday to produce Ozturk, by 9am ET on Thursday.
Videos released online purportedly showed plainclothes DHS officials wearing masks that partially covered their faces while detaining Ozturk in the street and taking her to one of several unmarked cars, while an unseen onlooker can be heard calling out challenges and framing the apprehension as like a kidnapping.
Tuesday’s operation by DHS officials is the latest in a series of arrests of students who are not accused of any crime but have been involved in on-campus, pro-Palestinian activism – in an sharp escalation of anti-immigration crackdowns and attacks on some political speech in higher education by the Trump administration.
In a statement to the Guardian, a DHS spokesperson said on Wednesday that Ozturk was “granted the privilege to be in this country on a visa” and, without supplying any proof, accused her of supporting Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza and led the attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, prompting a massive military response from Israel.
“DHS and Ice investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans,” the DHS spokesperson told the Guardian. “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.”
Officials may have already revoked the student visa for Ozturk, who is from Turkey, according to Reuters. A Tuesday message from Tufts University’s president, Sunil Kumar, said that the university “had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event”. Ozturk is doing her doctorate in philosophy at the university and is a Fulbright scholar.
“From what we have been told subsequently, the student’s visa has been terminated, and we seek to confirm whether that information is true,” Kumar’s letter reads.
In the videos released on Wednesday, Ozturk is seen walking on the street in daylight when six plainclothes officers approach her, forcibly take her phone and backpack, and place her in handcuffs. The officials, some with badges around their neck, all have their faces covered in the video.
“Is this a kidnapping?” a bystander asks, who appeared to be recording the arrest.
The recorded footage of Ozturk’s arrest began circulating on X, formerly Twitter.
In separate security camera footage, released by local television station WCVB, the agents can be heard responding: “We’re the police.”
The bystander can be heard saying: “You don’t look like it, why are you hiding your faces?”
Thirty-year-old Ozturk was detained on Tuesday as she left her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, on the outskirts of Boston, on her way to break her Ramadan fast with friends.
“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.”
According to news reports, Ozturk’s attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, had not been able to contact her client. On Tuesday, Khanbabai submitted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which would compel Ice to bring Ozturk before the court to show justification for her detention. On Wednesday afternoon, Khanbabai submitted an emergency motion to produce Ozturk, according to the court docket.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) advocacy group said in a statement: “We unequivocally condemn the abduction of a young Muslim hijab-wearing scholar by masked federal agents in broad daylight. This alarming act of repression is a direct assault on free speech and academic freedom.”
A federal judge on Tuesday had ordered Ice and DHS to notify the court about her location, and ordered officials to give 48 hours before transferring Ozturk out of Massachusetts. The judge initially gave the government until Friday to respond. However, on Wednesday late afternoon, Ozturk’s location was updated to show she is detained in Louisiana. The government did not submit any documents or updates to the federal court docket before her location in Louisiana was published. Khanbabai and Ice did not respond to requests for comment. DHS did not respond to questions about her transfer to Louisiana.
News reports say that Ozturk was involved in pro-Palestinian activism at Tufts. She had co-written an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper, criticizing the university’s response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Palestinians. According to the op-ed, last year, the Tufts community union senate passed three resolutions demanding the university “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”. But the op-ed said that the university’s response to the resolutions are “wholly inadequate and dismissive of the Senate, the collective voice of the student body”.
Earlier this month, DHS agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, who helped organize the pro-Palestinian movement at the school, using a little-known statute that the administration asserts allows the secretary of state to detain and deport any non-citizen who may be considered by the government to be a threat to foreign policy interests.
Ozturk’s attorney said that her information was recently added to a website tracking pro-Palestinian activists. The website, Canary Mission, published information about Ozurk, including her general location and work history.
Maya Yang, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting
