Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to an Iftar dinner to break Ramadan fast with her friends when a man in a black hooded sweatshirt approached her and grabbed her wrists. She screamed.
Another man in a ball cap and hooded sweatshirt then walked behind her, pulling out a badge from under his hoodie before grabbing Ozturk’s phone from her hand.
Other plain-clothes agents surrounded her with neck gaiters covering their faces, according to footage of her arrest near her apartment in Massachusetts. Of the six agents who surrounded her, all but one wore masks.
“Can I just call the cops?” she can be heard saying.
“We are the police,” one agent said before removing her backpack and placing her in handcuffs.
Her arrest — captured in full view of a surveillance camera on March 25 — has sent chills among student activists and civil rights groups after a string of similar incidents targeting international students for their Palestinian advocacy.
Who is Rumeysa Ozturk?
Ozturk is a student at Tuft University’s doctoral program for Child Study and Human Development. She graduated with a master’s degree from the Teachers College at Columbia University, according to her LinkedIn.
“I am passionate about researching children’s and adolescents' digital media and technologies for caring, kind, and compassionate media environments,” she writes. “As an interdisciplinary media researcher and developmental scientist in training, I research children's and adolescents' positive development in a media-embedded, globalized, and connected world.”
A profile from Columbia’s Teachers College says her research interests include “representation in children’s television, media literacy, and prosocial development.”
She also co-founded an independent children’s media initiative in Istanbul and, in her free time, she enjoys “reading picture books, hiking, baking (without recipes), and binge-watching cartoons and animations.”
“My graduate studies ... have been rewarding not only by providing a strong foundation in developmental science but also because it initiated the beginnings of friendships with a wonderful team of colloquies and international friends,” she said at the time. “I will always remember the inspiration, innovation, and a shared passion for education and child development that surrounded me at Teachers College.”
Last year, in response to Israel’s ongoing devastation of Gaza, Ozturk co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily newspaper calling on the university to divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel in an effort to hold Israel accountable “for clear violations of international law.”
“Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide,” the op-ed says.
The op-ed was written by four students and endorsed by 32 others.
Ozturk is among dozens of students and professors identified by Canary Mission, a pro-Israel campaign that maintains a database intended to blacklist and intimidate activists the group accuses of promoting “hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews.” The op-ed appears to be the group’s only alleged evidence against her.
Canary Mission appeared to take credit for her arrest on March 27, writing that “sources point to her Canary Mission profile as the primary cause.”
A statement from the Department of Homeland Security claimed Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas” — designated as a terrorist group behind the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked its retaliatory campaign in Gaza — but did not provide evidence of the allegations against her.
“Rumeysa has been my student, colleague, friend for over a decade,” Northeastern University psychologist Reyyan Bilge wrote. “[D]oes not carry a hateful bone in her body let alone being antisemitic. I wholeheartedly vouch for her and unless we speak up, these horrific events will continue to happen!”
Ozturk’s attorney filed a petition of habeas corpus challenging her arrest and detention. Massachusetts District Judge Indira Talwani gave federal officials until Friday to respond to the complaint, and Ozturk cannot be moved outside the state without at least 48 hours of advance notice to the court, according to Talwani’s order.
Her attorney Mahsa Khanbabai told The Independent on March 26 that she did not know where she was.
By that night, despite a court order preventing her removal from the state, Ozturk was sent to a detention facility in Louisiana.
“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday when asked about Ozturk’s arrest for writing an op-ed.
The Independent has requested comment from ICE.
Trump’s ‘disappearance’ of international students
Ozturk’s arrest follows similar actions from federal authorities targeting student activists and students who have merely spoken in support of Palestine, none of whom have been accused of committing any crime. Donald Trump’s administration has zeroed in on campus activism at prestigious universities, where Israel’s war in Gaza has provoked a wave of demonstrations and protest encampments demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel’s devastation.
In an email to the Tufts community following her arrest, university president Sunil Kumar said the school was informed her visa had been revoked.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrew Joy Campbell called the footage of Ozturk’s arrest “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.”
The state’s congressional delegation has also condemned the arrest and demanded Ozturk’s release from detention.
“This arrest is the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. “The Trump administration is targeting students with legal status and ripping people out of their communities without due process. This is an attack on our Constitution and basic freedoms — and we will push back.”
Senator Ed Markey said “disappearances like these are part of Trump’s all-out assault on our basic freedoms.”
“This is authoritarianism, and we will not let this stand,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley, whose district includes Tufts campus, called Ozturk a “peaceful protestor, grad student [and] my constituent who has a right to free speech [and] due process.”
“Now she’s a political prisoner,” Pressley said. “Free her now.”
Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss said while he disagrees with Ozturk’s op-ed, he has also been allowed to share his opposing view. “That's how America works,” he wrote. “Revoking her visa because of her political viewpoint is not how America works.”
Warnings of a ‘climate of fear and repression’ against free speech
Press freedom groups have also sounded alarms over the administration’s apparent collaboration with activist groups to target First Amendment-protected speech.
“Efforts to deport students based on their speech or protected activism undermine America's commitment to free expression,” Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told The Independent. “If ICE detained Ozturk based on her op-ed or activism, it's a worrying escalation in an already fraught environment for college students here on student visas.”
If Ozturk was arrested solely because of the op-ed, “it is absolutely appalling,” said Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation.”
“No one would have ever believed, even during [Trump’s] first term, that masked federal agents would abduct students from American universities for criticizing U.S. allies in student newspapers,” he said. “Anyone with any regard whatsoever for the Constitution should recognize how fundamentally at odds this is with our values and should be deeply repulsed as an American, regardless of political leanings. Canary Mission is aptly named — it may serve as the canary in the coal mine for the First Amendment.”
On March 25, university professors and academic organizations from across the country filed a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment through a “climate of fear and repression” on college campuses.
“Out of fear that they might be arrested and deported for lawful expression and association, some noncitizen students and faculty have stopped attending public protests or resigned from campus groups that engage in political advocacy,” according to the lawsuit.
That same day, a federal judge in Manhattan blocked the Trump administration from deporting Yunseo Chung, a Columbia University student and lawful permanent resident who was the victim of the government’s “shocking overreach,” vilifying her political views and constitutionally protected right to protest, according to her attorneys.
Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and prominent student activist accused by the Trump administration of organizing “pro-Hamas” attacks on campus, is currently battling his removal from the United States after his shocking arrest in front of his wife, a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant. He has also not been charged with any crime.
He is currently detained in Louisiana as his case moves jurisdictions to a federal court in New Jersey.
