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Thousands Protest ICE Abduction of Tufts Student as Trump Attacks at Universities Intensify
"She was abducted by armed agents of the state because she dared take a stand against genocide," said one supporter of Rumeysa Ozturk.
Mar 27, 2025
As reports surfaced Wednesday that Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University Ph.D. student who was abducted by immigration agents off a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, had been taken to a detention center in Louisiana, thousands of people assembled in the Boston-area city to demand Ozturk's release.
Ozturk was transferred to the South Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center despite a court order barring immigration officials from moving her out-of-state without prior notice, and her lawyers shared a statement at Powder House Park saying they hadn't been notified about the Turkish student's exact whereabouts. They also said her F-1 student visa had been terminated.
Organizers wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf, said Ozturk is the victim of "state-sanctioned political kidnapping"—targeted by ICE and the Trump administration for co-authoring an op-ed that criticized Tufts administrators for their "inadequate and dismissive" response to a student demand that the university divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Ozturk co-wrote the letter last March, weeks before students at Columbia University led a nationwide campus protest movement against the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza, which at the time had killed more than 30,000 Palestinians—the majority of whom were civilians despite repeated claims by the U.S. and Israel that the operation was targeting Hamas.
Since then, the Gaza death toll has surged past 50,000, and the Trump administration has cracked down on international students and organizers who participated in anti-Israel protests.
"She was abducted by armed agents of the state because she dared take a stand against genocide," said Lea Kayali of the Palestinian Youth Movement at the rally in Somerville. "And even though she may not consider herself an activist, she has more courage in the hand she wrote that article with than all of [President Donald] Trump's cronies combined."
As organizers noted that 370 people have been arrested in the Boston area by ICE in the last week—with officials calling some "collateral" in Trump's mass deportation campaign—demonstrators chanted, "Free Rumeysa, free them all!" and, "Come for one, face us all!"
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called Ozturk's detention "the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties."
"The Trump administration is targeting students with legal status and ripping people out of their communities without due process," said Warren. "This is an attack on our Constitution and basic freedoms—and we will push back."
Organizers urged attendees to focus on "community building," not just rallies, in response to ICE's repeated abductions.
"I don't need you to come to any more rallies. I need you to know your neighbors," said Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim Justice League. "There is no more time for these rallies and these marches where you say these things and you go home and you wait for another social media post to tell you to come here. You have to get organized."
Later Wednesday evening, AL.comreported that ICE's hunt for international students had reached the University of Alabama (UA). As the student-run newspaper, The Crimson White, reported, Iranian mechanical engineering doctoral student Alireza Doroudi was arrested early Tuesday morning by ICE agents. He was issued an F-1 student visa in January 2023 but had it revoked six months after he arrived in the U.S.
"After receiving the revocation notice, Alireza immediately contacted ISSS [International Student and Scholar Service] at University of Alabama," read a message sent in a group chat including Iranian students, according to The Crimson White. "ISSS replied with confidence, stating that his case was not unusual or problematic and that he could remain in the U.S. legally as long as he maintained his student status."
The University of Alabama Democrats said in response to Doroudi's abduction and detention in an undisclosed location, "Our fears have come to pass."
"Donald Trump, [border czar] Tom Homan, and ICE have struck a cold, vicious dagger through the heart of UA's international community," the group said. "As far as we know right now, ICE is yet to provide any justification for their actions, so we are not sure if this persecution is politically motivated, as has been seen in other universities around the country."
The targeting of foreign students at Columbia, Tufts, Georgetown, and other universities in recent weeks has led to outcry among academics, particularly as the ICE abductions have taken place alongside threats from the Trump administration to pull funding from schools for not sufficiently cracking down on alleged antisemitism on campus—which the White House has conflated with calls for Palestinian liberation and opposition to Israel's U.S.-backed attacks.
More than 600 members of the Harvard University faculty signed a letter to the school's governing board Wednesday warning that "ongoing attacks on American universities threaten bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, association, and inquiry." The faculty called on administrators to defy any orders that threaten academic freedom.
Nearly 1,400 academics have also called for a boycott of Columbia over its refusal to defend and protect students against Trump's attacks on pro-Palestinian protesters.
"We are appalled that Columbia's leadership has colluded with the authoritarian suppression of its students by fully capitulating to the conditions imposed by the Trump administration for the release of $400 million in grants withdrawn on March 7, and that it did so against the warning issued by constitutional law scholars that this course of action 'creates a dangerous precedent for every recipient of federal financial assistance,'" reads a letter from supporters of the academic boycott.
Former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil remains in detention in Louisiana after being abducted by plainclothes immigration agents earlier this month for leading negotiations with Columbia regarding divestment from Israel, while Ph.D. candidate Ranjani Srinivasan fled the country after her visa was revoked and Columbia unenrolled her. Columbia also expelled Grant Miner, a Jewish student and labor leader who occupied a campus building last spring, and revoked degrees from some student protesters.
"Universities cannot pretend to hold higher education sacred while repressing students and faculty, undermining free speech and academic freedom, and prohibiting dissent," reads the letter. "Every such act of craven suppression and compliance only further undermines the university and emboldens the reactionary forces intent on destroying it."
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Secretary Buttigieg, Act Now to Secure Justice for Shiloh Before Trump Takes Charge
I doubt you would want your legacy to read, “USDOT Secretary Pete let the Black Shiloh community and homeowners drown.”
Nov 18, 2024
Dear Secretary Pete Buttigieg,
I understand you and your top-level appointed officials at the U.S. Department of Transportation are preparing to leave their positions given the results of the November 5 elections. Again, I am pleading with you to fully resolve the highway flooding problem and secure the funds for binding commitments to cover flood damages to homes, businesses, and property in Elba, Alabama’s historically Black Shiloh community before the Biden-Harris administration comes to an end on January 20, 2025. We have two months to get justice for the Shiloh community. Let’s not fail them. Remember, they have been flooded for six-plus years.
Again, the matter of highway flooding in my hometown of Elba is no stranger to you and the USDOT. On February 27 this year, the Bullard Center sponsored a small delegation of Shiloh leaders to meet with Assistant Secretary Christopher Coes and high-level USDOT officials in Washington, D.C. And on April 3 of this year, you and several high-ranking members of your staff, including Assistant Secretary Coes and Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt (who has already left FHWA), participated in our “Journey to Justice” tour of the Shiloh community, talked with flood impacted residents, and saw firsthand the devastation left behind by six-plus years of highway flooding. It’s not a pretty picture—a shameful and dark reminder of misuse and abuse of federal transportation tax dollars.
Yes, racism created the highway flooding problem in Shiloh and it will require environmental justice to fix it.
Through no action or fault of their own, Shiloh residents are helpless as their beloved community becomes a small lake after a rainstorm—all due to racism, reckless design, and expansion of U.S. Highway 84 (that began in 2018 by the Alabama Department of Transportation or ALDOT) under the first Trump administration USDOT. And worse, lack of government response to the Shiloh residents’ complaints about flooding and damage to their homes and property add to growing mistrust of government—including restrictive covenants ALDOT attached to residents’ deeds and an unconscionable property settlement agreement that limits the ability of current and future residents to file actions against the state. The persistent flooding is also responsible for causing residents to lose homeowners insurance coverage, making them even more vulnerable to future economic losses due to climate change.
There is an abundance of documentation and irrefutable evidence to show flooding was not a problem in Shiloh before the Alabama DOT (ALDOT) widened U.S. 84 from two lanes to four lanes and elevated it, placing the once-flat land in the Shiloh community in a bowl and forcing stormwater downhill to flood its residents. To understand this highway flooding problem, one need not be a highway planner, engineer, hydrologist, or lawyer. It’s common-sense knowledge that gravity is forcing water downhill—in this case forcing highway stormwater into the Shiloh community.
By applying the widely accepted “polluter pays principle,” it’s clear who caused the problem and where the responsibility for addressing the flooding problem rests. ALDOT caused highway flooding in the Shiloh community and should be tasked with fixing the highway and required to pay for the damages and losses suffered by the Shiloh home, business, and property owners.
The hard-working Shiloh residents deserve better. They should not have their hard-earned tax dollars used to build a highway project that’s destroying their community and stealing their inheritance and intergenerational wealth. It would be shameful and immoral to allow the flooding problem in Shiloh to carry over into the second Trump administration, when it could be fully resolved on your watch under the Biden administration. I doubt you would want your legacy to read, “USDOT Secretary Pete let the Black Shiloh community and homeowners drown.” Yes, racism created the highway flooding problem in Shiloh and it will require environmental justice to fix it.
The October 4 Voluntary Resolution Agreement (VRA) between FHWA and ALDOT was reached on a civil rights discrimination complaint filed by Shiloh homeowners against the tate agency more than two years ago. The VRA represents binding commitments to fix the highway stormwater drainage system. It’s understandable why Shiloh residents see the VRA only as a partial civil rights victory, since the agreement does nothing to resolve or compensate residents for property losses or damaged homes and businesses. This is a textbook example of highway robbery. A just solution requires putting in place binding commitments to fully compensate Shiloh residents for more than six-plus years of flood losses and damages to their homes, businesses, and property, and offering voluntary buyouts and relocation for those who seek it. That’s the just, fair, and equitable thing to do.
Again, it is important the VRA fix the highway stormwater drainage problem. And it is equally important that binding commitments and an agreement to address damaged homes, property, and businesses be reached before this administration ends because it is unlikely the next USDOT under a second Trump administration would be inclined to resolve highway flood damages and losses of Shiloh residents that were caused by ALDOT under the first Trump administration USDOT.
Finally, ALDOT caused the problem and ALDOT should be held accountable to pay for a comprehensive solution—not a “partial fix” as contained in the VRA. The pressure is mounting for Secretary Pete to act as the clock is ticking for you to step up and make the flooded Shiloh community residents whole before this administration’s time runs out for them on your watch. It’s the just thing to do and the right time to do it. And you need to act with the urgency of now! Let’s not have the record show “you left Black people in Shiloh to drown” on your watch.
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Federal Judge Blocks Alabama's Election Eve Voter Purge
"This ruling strengthens our democracy by safeguarding access to the ballot for all eligible voters including naturalized citizens who were unfairly targeted and removed from the rolls," said one case litigant.
Oct 16, 2024
Citing a U.S. law prohibiting states from removing people from their registered voter lists within 90 days of an election, a U.S. federal judge on Wednesday ordered Alabama officials to pause a controversial voter roll purge until after next month's contest.
U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco—an appointee of former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee—wrote in her preliminary injunction that GOP Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by launching a campaign purportedly targeting "noncitizens registered to vote."
"Allen blew the [NVRA] deadline when he announced a purge program to begin 84 days before the 2024 general election," Manasco said, adding that the secretary of state "later admitted that his purge list included thousands of United States citizens (in addition to far fewer noncitizens, who are ineligible to vote), and in any event, referred everyone on the purge list to the Alabama attorney general for criminal investigation."
The Biden administration's Department of Justice, along with civil and voting rights groups, last month sued Allen and the state of Alabama over the policy's timing. Individual Alabama voters also filed suit claiming the purge targeted naturalized U.S. citizens.
Allen's program removed more than 3,000 people from Alabama's voter rolls and referred them for criminal prosecution. However, more than 2,000 targeted individuals have since been deemed eligible to vote. Manasco's ruling gave Alabama officials three days to restore the active status of all wrongfully purged voters.
Responding to the decision, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said that "this action sends a clear message that the Justice Department will work to ensure that the rights of eligible voters are protected."
"The National Voter Registration Act's 90-day 'quiet period provision' is an important safeguard to prevent erroneous eleventh-hour efforts that stand to disenfranchise eligible voters," Clarke added. "The Justice Department remains steadfast in our resolve to protect voters from unlawful removal from the registration rolls and to ensure that states comply with the mandate of federal law."
Litigants in the challenge to Allen's voter removal program also welcomed Wednesday's ruling.
"We are pleased with the court's swift action to protect Alabama voters from an unlawful purge and ensure they can fully participate in the upcoming elections," League of Women Voters of Alabama president Kathy Jones said in a statement following Manasco's decision. "This ruling strengthens our democracy by safeguarding access to the ballot for all eligible voters including naturalized citizens who were unfairly targeted and removed from the rolls."
Campaign Legal Center senior legal counsel Kate Huddleston said: "No U.S. citizen should be afraid to vote, and we are proud to have defended Alabamians ahead of the upcoming election. Today's court decision helps protect Alabama citizens' freedom to register and vote without concerns about government interference or intimidation."
Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel at the NAACP, noted that "for over 115 years, the NAACP has been fighting for the right to vote," and while "the suppression tactics may look different... the intent remains the same—silencing Black and other vulnerable voices."
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