Federal Government Detains International Student at Tufts
The university was told that the student’s visa had been terminated, its president said in a late-night email to students and faculty members.
Federal Government Detains International Student at Tufts
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The university was told that the student’s visa had been terminated, its president said in a late-night email to students and faculty members.
March 26, 2025Updated 1:14 p.m. ET
A sign reading “Tufts University” stands by a fence with a lawn and trees beyond.
Tufts University said that an international student in a graduate program had been taken into custody outside an off-campus apartment building.Brian Snyder/Reuters
An international student in a graduate program at Tufts University was taken into federal custody on Tuesday outside an off-campus apartment building, according to the university’s president and an attorney representing the student.
The student, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen, had a valid student visa as a doctoral student at Tufts, according to a statement from her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai. Ms. Ozturk, who is Muslim, was heading out to break her Ramadan fast with friends Tuesday night when she was detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security her apartment in Somerville, Mass., Ms. Khanbabai said.
“We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her,” the lawyer said. “No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of.”
A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the department, did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday about the case.
Tufts administrators were told that the student’s visa had been terminated, the university’s president, Sunil Kumar, wrote in an email to students, staff and faculty members Tuesday night. He said in the email that the university was “seeking to confirm whether that information is true.”
Late on Tuesday,Judge Indira Talwani of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts ordered that Ms. Ozturk not be moved out of the state without advance written notice to the court from the government. Judge Talwani’s order said that Ms. Ozturk had asked that a judge determine whether her detention was lawful.
Ms. Ozturk’s court petition named as respondents Patricia Hyde, the acting director of the Boston field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other ICE officials.
Mr. Kumar wrote in the email that Tufts administrators had no prior knowledge of the plan to detain the student, and did not share any information with federal authorities ahead of time.
“We realize that tonight’s news will be distressing to some members of our community, particularly the members of our international community,” Mr. Kumar wrote.
Ms. Ozturk was listed as one of several authors of an opinion essay published last March in the Tufts student newspaper. The essay criticized university leaders for their response to demands that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and divest itself from companies with ties to Israel.
She is one of several students who have been targeted for deportation by the Trump administration. Earlier this month, Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and leader of pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations who has permanent U.S. residency, was arrested by federal immigration officers in New York. Though he has not been charged with any crime, the Trump administration has argued that he should be deported to prevent the spread of antisemitism.
At Tufts, the president’s email reminded students of the university’s “established protocol for responding to government agents who arrive on campus (or off-campus) for an unannounced site visit,” which encourages them to call the university police in such situations.
With the caveat that the basis for Ms. Ozturk’s detention was not known, Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, said that trying to deport students based on their speech or activism undermines America’s commitment to free expression.
“If ICE detained Ozturk based on her op-ed or activism, it’s a worrying escalation in an already fraught environment for college students here on student visas,” Mr. Coward said in a statement.
The nearly 12,000 full-time students at Tufts include 1,900 international students from 124 countries, according to the website for the university’s International Center.
Ms. Ozturk is featured on a 2021 Facebook page for Columbia University’s Teachers College. The page says that she received a master’s degree from the developmental psychology program with a focus in children’s media in 2020 as a Fulbright scholar, and was pursuing a doctorate at Tufts. The profile goes on to say that she co-founded an independent children’s media initiative in Istanbul called Kaplumbaga’nın Heybesi.
“In her free time, you can find Rumeysa reading picture books, hiking, baking (without recipes), and binge-watching cartoons and animations!,” it says.
Canary Mission, a group that says it fights hatred of Jews on college campuses, had posted a photo of Ms. Ozturk on its website, identifying her as a student at Tufts and saying that she “engaged in anti-Israel activism in March 2024,” a possible reference to her opinion essay. Pro-Palestinian activists have said the group exposes their identities, making them targets of harassment.
President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29 saying his administration would take steps to combat antisemitism, including on campuses. The order said it would be U.S. policy to use “all available and appropriate legal tools,” including to “remove” aliens who engage in “unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”
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Tufts’s main campus is in Medford, Mass., a small city seven miles northwest of Boston and adjacent to Somerville, where the student was detained.
Anemona Hartocollis contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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