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immigration and customs enforcement
'This Is Authoritarianism': Lawmakers Demand Release of Abducted Tufts Student
Rumeysa Ozturk's case is one of several "deeply troubling incidents," they wrote. "The administration should not summarily detain and deport legal residents of this country merely for expressing their political views."
Mar 28, 2025
Most of Massachusetts' congressional delegation and dozens of other Democratic lawmakers on Friday called for the release of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk and demanded answers from members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet about her "disturbing arrest and detention" by immigration officials.
Ozturk, a Turkish national, is a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a Ph.D. in child and human development. She was targeted for deportation after co-authoring a Tufts Daily op-ed critical of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip—like various other anti-genocide students recently "abducted" by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"The rationale for this arrest appears to be this student's expression of her political views," 34 lawmakers—led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, all Massachusetts Democrats—wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Nome, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and ICE acting Director Todd Lyons. "We are calling for full due process in this case and are seeking answers about this case and about ICE's policy that has led to the identification and arrest of university students with valid legal status."
The letter details how Ozturk was yanked off a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Tuesday: "Surveillance footage of the arrest shows officers approach her in plain black clothing, with no visible badges. She screams as an officer grabs her hands. During the arrest, one officer pulls out his badge as other officers appear and cover their faces with masks. The surveillance video shows officers loading Ozturk into an SUV and departing in three unmarked vehicles. Bystanders observed that the incident 'looked like a kidnapping.'"
Rumeysa Ozturk was kidnapped in plain sight & sent to Louisiana to be locked in the same detention center Mahmoud Khalil was sent to. She's a peaceful protestor, grad student, & my constituent who has a right to free speech & due process. Now she's a political prisoner. Free her now.
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— Ayanna Pressley (@ayannapressley.bsky.social) March 26, 2025 at 6:56 PM
"While the Department of Homeland Security has not publicly specified the alleged activities that led to Ozturk's arrest, this arrest appears to be one of the latest examples in a string of ICE arrests of university students with valid green cards and visas because of their political views," the letter notes. "Tufts University was informed that Ozturk's 'visa has been terminated'—similar to other recent cases in which ICE agents have declared, without any judicial or administrative hearing, that they were 'terminating' or 'revoking' students' green cards and visas."
"These are deeply troubling incidents," the lawmakers asserted. "The administration should not summarily detain and deport legal residents of this country merely for expressing their political views. Absent compelling evidence justifying her detention and the revocation of her status, we call for Ozturk's release and the restoration of her visa."
They also demanded responses by April 5 to a detailed list of questions about Trump administration policies, Ozturk's case, and "health-related complaints" at the ICE facility in Louisiana where she was transferred, "including for denying food that appropriately accommodates detainees' religious views, serving undrinkable water, and not complying with protocols on the spread of infectious diseases."
The letter is signed by six other Massachusetts Democrats—Reps. Jake Auchincloss, Katherine Clark, Stephen Lynch, Jim McGovern, Seth Moulton, and Lori Trahan—as well as progressive leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"Absent from this list," notedZeteo reporter Prem Thakker, are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Many of the letter's signatories have already individually spoken out about Ozturk's case this week.
"This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa's constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released," Pressley said in a Wednesday statement, as reports emerged about her arrest. "And we won't stand by while the Trump administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms."
Markey shared the surveillance footage on social media Wednesday and wrote: "'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."
Warren also turned to social media on Wednesday, stressing that "this arrest is the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil liberties," and calling out the Trump administration for "ripping people out of their communities without due process."
"We will push back," Warren pledged.
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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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Tufts PhD Student and Farmworker Organizer Latest Targets as ICE Agents Operate 'Like Kidnappers'
"Immigrants are not the enemy, we are part of the worker movement towards justice which includes fair wages, healthcare, education, housing, and solidarity," said one social justice group.
Mar 26, 2025
The Trump administration sparked a fresh wave of fury over its deportation agenda with the Tuesday detentions of Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk in Massachusetts and Alfredo "Lelo" Juarez Zeferino, a farmworker activist in Washington state.
The Boston Globereported that Ozturk, a Turkish national, is a "student at the Tufts's doctoral program for Child Study and Human Development, according to her LinkedIn, and graduated with a master's degree from the Teachers College at Columbia University."
The Fulbright Scholar is one of several foreign academics—including multiple from Columbia in New York—targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after speaking out about the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
According to the Globe:
Ozturk does not appear to be a leading figure of the Pro-Palestinian protest movement at Tufts. But according to Ozturk's attorney, the student's photo and other identifying information were recently posted on Canary Mission, a website that documents individuals and organizations it considers to be antisemitic. Pro-Palestinian protesters say the site has doxxed and targeted them.
In March 2024, Ozturk co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts Daily, the university's student paper, criticizing the university's response to the pro-Palestinian movement and efforts by members of the student body to sever its ties to Israel.
"In a statement provided through her attorney, community activists said that Ozturk was 'ambushed' by ICE agents on the way to an Iftar dinner with friends after leaving her apartment," the newspaper noted. "Neighbors reported that unmarked cars had allegedly been surveilling the location for two days before apprehending her on the street."
Responding to reporting on social media, the group RootsAction
said: "Another pro-Palestine student kidnapped off the streets and disappeared by the Feds. Rumeysa Ozturk was abducted last night by ICE after leaving her apartment to go to Iftar dinner."
Jonathan Cohn, political director for the organization Progressive Mass,
declared that "the Trump administration's ICE goons are acting like kidnappers because that's what they are."
Authorities faced similar backlash for their actions toward Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who last year helped lead protests and finished his graduate studies at Columbia. When Khalil's family released a video of his arrest earlier this month, his wife, Noor Abdalla, said, "This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me."
Not long after Khalil's detention, masked agents "abducted" Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. One of Suri's attorneys called his case "emblematic of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to suppress voices—citizens and noncitizens alike—who dare to speak out against governmental policies."
An unverified video that appears to show Ozturk being taken into custody circulated on social media Wednesday.
Turkish PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by masked U.S. ICE agents yesterday while heading to an Iftar dinner in Massachusetts.
Ozturk, who held a valid F-1 visa and studied at Tufts University, was reportedly being watched for two days before her arrest.
She was on the… pic.twitter.com/eL92GyKE3J
— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 26, 2025
In a Tuesday email that did not name Ozturk, Tufts' president Sunil Kumar said: "We received reports that an international graduate student was taken into custody this evening by federal authorities outside an off-campus apartment building in Somerville. The university had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event."
"From what we have been told subsequently, the student's visa has been terminated," Kumar continued. "We realize that tonight's news will be distressing to some members of our community, particularly the members of our international community. We will continue to provide information, support, and resources in the days ahead as more details become available to us."
Supporters of Ozturk are planning a rally in Powder House Square Park at 5:30 pm Eastern on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Juarez "was detained violently by ICE," according to a Tuesday Facebook post from the social justice group Community to Community Development. "He was on his way to drop off his partner at her workplace, and ICE agents broke his car window when he tried to exercise his rights."
"We feel this is a targeted attack on farmworker leadership, and we must not allow this to continue," the group said, urging supporters to contact elected officials in Washington to demand his release. "Lelo's leadership and activism and leadership have been vital in protecting farmworkers and immigrants' rights and well-being."
"As unions, community organizations, student groups, and people who have decency, We Demand That ICE stays out of Washington and let workers be at peace," the group added. "Immigrants are not the enemy, we are part of the worker movement towards justice which includes fair wages, healthcare, education, housing, and solidarity."
The group's founder, Rosalinda Guillen, toldThe Seattle Times that Juarez, a 25-year-old berry picker and member of the Indigenous Mexican Mixteco community, has organized on behalf of farmworker rights in the state since he was just 14.
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) 3000 said in a statement that "we're furious over these credible reports of immigration enforcement violently detaining Alfredo 'Lelo' Juarez Zeferino, a longtime labor leader who fought for farmworkers and immigrant rights and who helped expose the existence of the very same unmarked ICE facility in Ferndale where he was reportedly held this afternoon."
"In response, our union members grabbed bullhorns and traveled directly to the facility to protest this injustice. We will continue to show up to worker-led actions as long as it takes," the union added. "By targeting workers like Lelo—and, reportedly, a union lab tech at the University of Washington—the Trump administration clearly aims to terrorize immigrant workers no matter how they came to this country. We will not stand for it."
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