'Terrified' community 'horrified' at CCTV footage showing ICE agents detaining Tufts student

Record ID: 1986672

  • Title: 'Terrified' community 'horrified' at CCTV footage showing ICE agents detaining Tufts student
  • Date: 28th March 2025
  • Summary: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES (MARCH 28, 2025) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) REYYAN BILGE, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR IN THE PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT, SAYING: "That is terrifying. And it's terrifying not only for me who knows her very well, but it's probably terrifying for everyone else who would understand the situation here. She is directl
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Palestinians Rumeysa Ozturk Trump Tufts
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,North America,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA007257828032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: U.S. immigration authorities have detained and revoked the visa of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University near Boston who had voiced support for Palestinians in Israel's war in Gaza.
    Rumeysa Ozturk's supporters say her detention, late on Tuesday (March 25), is the first known immigration arrest of a Boston-area student engaged in such activism to be carried out by President Donald Trump's administration, which has detained or sought to detain several foreign-born students who are legally in the U.S. 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 antisemitic and can undermine U.S. foreign policy.
    A video of the arrest showed masked and plainclothes agents taking the 30-year-old Turkish national into custody near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Tuesday evening, when, according to her lawyer, she was heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast.
    "I broke down because I was in class and I just stepped out during the break, and saw the clip," said Reyyan Bilge on Friday (March 28). "Some of my friends and my students actually, who are international and who are on valid visas, just like Rumeysa, are really scared and some of them do not even want to leave their house thinking that they would be snatched off the street just like she did."
    Bilge is an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University's psychology department, and Ozturk's friend.
    "Rumeysa is the kindest, the sweetest, the most decent person that you would come across in your life," she said.
    Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim Justice League, said the surveillance video was "horrifying and many neighbors witnessed it happening... The community is really scared. I think all of us are scared, especially immigrants, regardless of status."
    Ozturk is a Fulbright scholar and student in Tufts' doctoral program for Child Study and Human Development who had been in the country on an F-1 visa to study.
    Her arrest came a year after Ozturk co-authored an opinion piece in the school's student paper, the Tufts Daily, that criticized Medford, Massachusetts-based Tufts' response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide."
    "She is being unlawfully targeted by the Trump administration simply because she co-authored an op-ed calling for Palestinians to have basic human rights," said Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk's lawyer, in a statement on Thursday (March 27).
    Following Ozturk's arrest, Khanbabai filed a lawsuit late on Tuesday arguing she was unlawfully detained, prompting U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston that night to order U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to not move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without at least 48 hours notice.
    Yet by Wednesday (March 26) night, Ozturk was in Louisiana, despite the court order, Khanbabai said. She said people "should all be horrified at the way DHS abducted Rumeysa in broad daylight. No person, regardless of their citizenship status, should be targeted over their views, especially in support of human rights."
    She was arrested as part of the Trump administration's targeting of international students as it seeks to crack down on immigration, including ramping up immigration arrests and sharply restricting border crossings.
    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday the State Department may have revoked more than 300 visas and warned that the Trump administration was looking every day for "these lunatics" after Washington this week detained and revoked Ozturk's visa.
    "It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," Rubio said at a press conference in Guyana, without elaborating on whose visas had been revoked. "At some point, I hope we run out because we've gotten rid of all of them, but we're looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up."
    The top U.S. diplomat confirmed the State Department revoked Ozturk's visa but did not address details when asked what specific actions Ozturk had taken that merited such a move.
    Rubio said if a person applies "for a visa to enter the United States and be a student and you tell us that the reason why you're coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we're not going to give you a visa."
    (Production: Monica Naime, Roselle Chen)
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