Rubio defends detention of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the detention of a foreign Ph.D. student at Tufts University on Tuesday.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was seen in a video arrested by plain-clothes federal officers and taken away in an unmarked van.
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa,” Rubio told reporters.
It is known Ozturk wrote an op-ed for her newspaper defending Palestine last year, but her protest activities or specifics around what actions led to her arrest are unclear.
Tufts University said it had no prior warning to her arrest, which happened off campus.
“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that we’re going to take it away,” Rubio said.
“We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country,” he added.
The video of Ozturk’s arrest caused outrage on social media, with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) calling the footage “chilling.”
Ozturk is one of at least eight international students and faculty members who have been targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators.