Tufts student from Turkey details arrest, crowded detention conditions
in new court filing
[April 12, 2025]
By KATHY McCORMACK
A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey is demanding her release
after she was detained by immigration officials near her Massachusetts
home, detailing how she was scared when the men grabbed her phone and
feared she would be killed.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, who has since been moved to an Immigration and
Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana, provided an
updated account of what happened to her as she walked along a street on
March 25, in a document filed by her lawyers in federal court Thursday.
Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities whose
visas were revoked or have been stopped from entering the U.S. after
they were accused of attending demonstrations or publicly expressed
support for Palestinians. On Friday, a Louisiana immigration judge ruled
that the U.S. can deport Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud
Khalil based on the federal government’s argument that he poses a
national security risk.
‘I felt very scared and concerned’
“I felt very scared and concerned as the men surrounded me and grabbed
my phone from me,” Ozturk said in the statement. They told her they were
police, and one quickly showed what might have been a gold badge. “But I
didn't think they were the police because I had never seen police
approach and take someone away like this,” she said.
Ozturk said she was afraid because her name, photograph and work history
were published earlier this year on the website Canary Mission, which
describes itself as documenting people who “promote hatred of the
U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.”
She said the men didn't tell her why they were arresting her and
shackled her. She said at one point, after they had changed cars, she
felt “sure they were going to kill me.” During a stop in Massachusetts,
one of the men said to her, “We are not monsters,” and “We do what the
government tells us.”
She said they repeatedly refused her requests to speak to a lawyer.
Hearing scheduled on Ozturk's case in Vermont
A petition to release her was first filed in federal court in Boston and
then moved to Burlington, Vermont, where a hearing on her case to
resolve jurisdictional issues is scheduled on Monday.
Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights,
including free speech and due process. They have asked that she be
released from custody.
U.S. Justice Department lawyers say her case in New England should be
dismissed and that it should be handled in immigration court. Ozturk “is
not without recourse to challenge the revocation of her visa and her
arrest and detention, but such challenge cannot be made before this
court," government lawyers said in a brief filed Thursday.
She recalled that the night she spent in the cell in Vermont, she was
asked about wanting to apply for asylum and if she was a member of a
terrorist organization. “I tried to be helpful and answer their
questions but I was so tired and didn’t understand what was happening to
me,” she stated.
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In this image taken from security camera video, Rumeysa Ozturk, a
30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by
Department of Homeland Security agents on a street in Sommerville,
Mass., Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo)
Ozturk, who suffers from asthma, had an attack the next day at the
airport in Atlanta, as she was being taken to Louisiana, she said.
She was able to use her inhaler, but unable to get her prescribed
medication because there was no place to buy it, she said she was
told.
Ozturk says she wasn't let outside for a week
Once she was put in the Louisiana facility, she was not allowed to
go outside during the first week and had limited access to food and
supplies for two weeks. She said she suffered three more asthma
attacks there and had limited care at a medical center.
Ozturk said she is one of 24 people in a cell that has a sign
stating capacity for 14.
“When they do the inmate count we are threatened to not leave our
beds or we will lose privileges, which means that we are often stuck
waiting in our beds for hours,” she said. “At mealtimes, there is so
much anxiety because there is no schedule when it comes. … They
threaten to close the door if we don’t leave the room in time,
meaning we won’t get a meal.”
Ozturk said she wants to go back to Tufts so she can finish her
degree, which she has been working on for five years.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus
newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s
response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the
Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from
companies with ties to Israel.
A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said federal
authorities detained Ozturk after an investigation found she had
“engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist
organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” The department
did not provide evidence of that support.
Ozturk is supported by coalition of Jewish groups
A coalition of 27 Jewish organizations from across the United States
is objecting to Ozturk's arrest and detention.
The organizations say those actions and possible deportation of
Ozturk for her protected speech “violate the most basic
constitutional rights,” such as freedom of expression.
“The government … appears to be exploiting Jewish Americans’
legitimate concerns about antisemitism as pretext for undermining
core pillars of American democracy, the rule of law, and the
fundamental rights of free speech and academic debate on which this
nation was built,” the groups say in a friend-of-the-court brief
filed Friday in her case.
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