Muslim PhD student on her way to Iftar ambushed by Trump’s immigration agents
A Turkish woman with a valid visa has become the latest victim of Donald Trump’s crusade to deport foreign students from the US who disagree with his policies.
Rumeysa Ozturk, who criticised her university’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza, was detained and had her visa terminated in what has been branded a ‘state sanctioned political kidnapping’.
Footage shows her being ambushed by plainclothes-masked Department of Homeland Security agents as she was on her way to break her Ramadan fast.
The 30-year-old had just left her home in Somerville, in Massachusetts, on Tuesday evening when she was surrounded.
Six people – dressed in black and their faces covered by masks – are shown handcuffing the PhD student’s phone as she screams for help.
Ozturk is heard asking if she can call police before one of the agents pulls out their badge.
‘We are the police,’ the agents are heard saying in the video, taken from an apartment window by a resident.
Neighbours said they were rattled by the arrest, which they said looked like a ‘kidnapping’.
Michael Mathis, a software engineer whose surveillance camera captured the arrest, said: ‘They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered.
‘They are covering their faces. They are in unmarked vehicles.’
The ICE locator database has listed the student as being held in the ‘South Louisiana Processing Center’ in Basile, Louisiana – more than 1,400 miles away from where she was detained.
Her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, told reporters that her team is unaware of her whereabouts, has been unable to contact her, and that no charges have been filed against his clients that they are aware of.
He added in a statement: ‘Rumeysa Ozturk is a Turkish national who was maintaining valid F-1 status as a PhD student at Tufts University.
A string of arrests under Trump's administration
Ozturk’s arrest is the latest in a growing list of Trump’s crackdown on foreign students and university faculty members who have spoken out against Israel’s war in Gaza.
In January, the president signed executive orders to make sure that noncitizens in the US do not bear hostility toward the country and do not advocate for foreign terrorists and to combat antisemitism.
Immigration authorities have made several arrests under the policies, including Mahmoud Khalil and at least four others.
Another one who fled to Canada in fear of being arrest.
‘Rumeysa was heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast on the evening of March 25 when she was detained near her home in Somerville, MA by DHS agents.’
Since her arrest, a DHS spokesperson has claimed – without evidence – that ‘DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas’.
US District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order giving the government until tomorrow to answer why Ozturk was being detained.
Talwani also ordered that the student not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without 48 hours advance notice.
A senior DHS spokesperson confirmed the incident and the termination of her visa.
‘DHS and (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans,’ they said.
‘A visa is a privilege, not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security.’
Ozturk cowrote article criticizing university response to Palestinian issues and was one of four students last March who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing the university’s response to its community union Senate passing resolutions that demanded Tufts ‘acknowledge the Palestinian genocide’.
Friends said she was not otherwise closely involved in protests against Israel.
But after the piece was published, her name, photo and work history were featured by Canary Mission, a website that says it documents people who ‘promote hatred of the US, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.’
The op-ed was the only cited example of ‘anti-Israel activism’ by Ozturk.
Students and faculty elsewhere also have recently had visas revoked or been blocked from entering the US because they attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians.
Trump ‘s administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.