Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night to meet friends and break her Ramadan fast when she was arrested by Department of Homeland Security agents, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court.
Ozturk’s supporters say her detention is the first known immigration arrest of a Boston-area student engaged in such activism to be carried out under President Donald Trump.
His administration has detained or sought to detain several foreign-born students who are legally in the US and have been involved in pro-Palestinian protests.
The actions have been condemned as an assault on free speech, though the Trump administration argues that certain protests are anti-Semitic and can undermine US foreign policy.
US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin in a post on X said authorities determined Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organisation that relishes the killing of Americans”.
“A visa is a privilege, not a right,” McLaughlin said.
She did not specify what activities. But Ozturk’s arrest came a year after the student co-authored an opinion piece in the school’s student paper, the Tufts Daily, that criticised Tufts’ response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.
“Based on patterns we are seeing across the country, her exercising her free speech rights appears to have played a role in her detention,” Khanbabai said.
Following Ozturk’s arrest, Khanbabai filed a lawsuit late Tuesday arguing she was unlawfully detained, prompting US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston that night to order US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not to move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without at least 48 hours notice.
Despite the judge’s order, by Wednesday afternoon, Khanbabai in a motion said she had been unable to locate her client in New England and had just been informed by a US senator’s office that Ozturk was transferred to Louisiana. She sought a court order requiring ICE to permit access to Ozturk.
The student’s detention was condemned by Democratic lawmakers, including US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who said the “arrest is the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties”. A rally in her support was expected later Wednesday in Somerville.
Neighbours said they were left rattled by the arrest, which played out at 5:30pm on a residential block.
“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.”
The Trump administration has targeted international students as it seeks to crack down on immigration, including ramping up immigration arrests and sharply restricting border crossings.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in particular, have pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters, accusing them of supporting Hamas, posing hurdles for US foreign policy, and being anti-Semitic.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the administration wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism and support for Hamas.
Ozturk is a Fulbright Scholar and student in Tufts’ doctoral programme for child study and human development, according to her LinkedIn profile, and had previously studied at Columbia University in New York.
She has been in the country on an F-1 visa, which allows students to live in the US while studying, according to the lawsuit.
In a statement, Tufts president Sunil Kumar said the school had no advance knowledge of the arrest, which he recognised would be “distressing to some members of our community, particularly the members of our international community”.
Ozturk was taken into custody less than three weeks after Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and lawful permanent resident, was similarly arrested. He is challenging his detention after Trump, without evidence, accused him of supporting Hamas, which Khalil denies.
Federal immigration officials are also seeking to detain a South Korean-born Columbia University student who is a legal permanent US resident and has participated in pro-Palestinian protests, a move blocked by the courts for now.
A Lebanese doctor and assistant professor at Brown University in Rhode Island this month was denied re-entry to the US and deported to Lebanon after the Trump administration alleged that her phone contained photos “sympathetic” to Hezbollah. Rasha Alawieh said she does not support the group but holds regard for its slain leader because of her religion.
The Trump administration has also targeted students at Cornell University in New York and Georgetown University in Washington.
