Masked federal agents detain Tufts University PhD student for writing an article asking Tufts to acknowledge Palestine and divest from Israel

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Federal Government Detains International Student at Tufts
Summarize
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.”



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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CP3.

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What is the end game of the Jews? Eventually the boomers will die off and they will be left with generations of Americans that do not fukk with them or at the very least do not feel obligated to fund their project. Then what's the plan?

You underestimate how many of the younger generation within those boomers families are exactly like them.
 

east

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What is the end game of the Jews? Eventually the boomers will die off and they will be left with generations of Americans that do not fukk with them or at the very least do not feel obligated to fund their project. Then what's the plan?
they've already said what their endgame is, it's nuking paris/rome/other european capitals, moscow, and islam's holy sites. just last month their government threatened to nuke egypt unless they accepted millions of forcibly displaced palestinians. ("Gazans are in a desperate need for a quarantine in Egypt. By the way, this goes not only for Gazans. It goes also for the West Bankers. And it goes for the Arabs in Israel who don't respect. Who don't respect and don't understand their duty and their loyalty toward their flag and toward the lives of the country that is hosting them. If [Egyptian President al-Sisi] opens his mouth [to protest], the High Dam, one missile, 80 million goyim will be floating in the Mediterranean Sea.")
 

bnew

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https://bsky.app/profile/‪Matt Novak‬ ‪@paleofuture.bsky.social‬/post/3llccznpbvc2r
1/35
🇺 chrislhayes.bsky.social
Unidentified men grabbing someone off the street and putting her in a car because she wrote an op-Ed. This as flatly authoritarian as anything we’ve seen in this country in a very long time.

[QUOTED POST]
🇺 ‪Matt Novak‬ ‪@paleofuture.bsky.social‬
Video of the international student at Tufts being arrested by "federal authorities" in Massachusetts has been released and it's terrifying.

They're not even uniformed officers. Just secret police thugs in hoodies and masks.

From WCVB: youtu.be/PuFIs7OkzYY
https://video.bsky.app/watch/did:pl...hp65e26zc2uh5m2my7uc377swidveny/playlist.m3u8

2/35
🇺 xinrtj.bsky.social
Horrifying that she’s disappeared for an op-ed. But also: even if she had committed a crime, she is entitled to know who is arresting her and why, to know her rights, have access to an atty. In any functional democracy, unidentified men just grabbing her is unacceptable even for a criminal.

3/35
🇺 capnjackresists.bsky.social
Take note: this isn't a dystopian movie. This is not Eastern Europe in the 90's. This is America 2025.

4/35
🇺 pixielauren.bsky.social
If you've ever wondered, "what would I have done in Nazi Germany?" -- it's what you're doing RIGHT fukkING NOW.

5/35
🇺 gweninthe416.bsky.social
Is America great yet? Asking for a concerned world?
bafkreia3vmxe4n73nakew3weilk7wfmt7v4bzxv4jgvha4ua5vcrintyqe@jpeg


6/35
🇺 4sperry.bsky.social
Full on Fascism right there

7/35
🇺 splatterthought.bsky.social
If you come up to me in civilian clothes wearing masks & putting hands on me.... I'm punching, stabbing, macing, or shooting you.

If you do it to someone else, I'm going to consider doing the same to protect them.

This is not effective or even reasonable law enforcement in any way, shape, or form.

8/35
🇺 jupiter8.bsky.social
I'd only be worried these hopped up bros would kill you.

9/35
🇺 manuclearbomb.bsky.social
This should lead your show and every show on MSNBC right

10/35
🇺 dodgeintercept1.bsky.social
Maddow doesn't comment on anything related to Palestinians/Gaza

11/35
🇺 manuclearbomb.bsky.social
Not shocked, NBC generally is pro genocide

12/35
🇺 jbretd.bsky.social
Gestapo

13/35
🇺 johndettling.bsky.social
There should be national law no person can be arrested, stopped, denied entry, etc. without the names and agency ID of any security person made public and part of the documentation. We should know the names of the "officers" to deter these kind of covert arrests and shame people from participating.

14/35
🇺 jamiemcguire3p.bsky.social
Our administration won't even follow our existing freaking laws on such matters; there's zero chance they'd obey some new mandate.

15/35
🇺 johndettling.bsky.social
True, but I am thinking there are actually a healthy number of Republicans and many independents who may be troubled by the arrest of people like this. Dems could promote new legislation now to get national support and try to change the narrative against Trump admin. Anything helps.

16/35
🇺 johndettling.bsky.social
Like to the point in this thread: security should only be able to wear masks under certain circumstances. People should only be able to put in unmarked cars under certain circumstances. People should be able to call lawyers, friends before put in car unless person is category of violent threat. Etc

17/35
🇺 noturavgmimi.bsky.social
Is this where all those pardoned Jan 6 criminals are now employed?

18/35
🇺 hookcity.bsky.social
It's time to bring back firing squads for these terrorist
bafkreihe7oi4ua3zswdjimcvcnol52ndbdjuj6wwrszuleihy3t6ororhu@jpeg


19/35
🇺 mazs23.bsky.social
domestic terrorists like MAGA?

20/35
🇺 singerindy.bsky.social
Serious question, what defense would she have if she shot them?

If unidentified strangers tried to kidnap me or my family, I would take action.

In Indiana, there have been dudes arrested for saying they were ICE and trying to take people.

21/35
🇺 singerindy.bsky.social
And elsewhere...

www.wndu.com/2025/01/29/m...
bafkreig4jpfdpx4rq2ojp7chmqkj6tywtkgxyenhhzd3oli7f3yg7t56pi@jpeg


22/35
🇺 autopostai.bsky.social
Free speech alert: where writing your truth lands you in a car ride without a seatbelt.

23/35
🇺 beachnic.bsky.social
www.npr.org/2025/03/11/n...
bafkreihableroobbwacu6iuwtcrr2kkt53bozesme5tt6grz5rbpza3u4a@jpeg


24/35
🇺 caesarrodney2025.bsky.social
American Gestapo. And why the masks? Even the Gestapo didn't bother with those. Are they ashamed of what they're doing, or hoping to avoid being tried as criminals when sanity returns to our nation?

25/35
🇺 uchusky23.com
This makes me sick. Jesus Christ they can make anyone disappear

26/35
🇺 rowanchandler.bsky.social
Use deadly force to protect yourself from being kidnapped.

27/35
🇺 magnusxander.bsky.social
I’ve been told the excuse for years about how “the 2nd Amendment is to protect us from govt tyranny”.
(I don’t subscribe to this notion)

I’ve been told by free speech absolutists, like say…Elon Musk, how important free speech is.
(I do subscribe to this notion)

Where these people at?

28/35
🇺 1981photo.bsky.social
Cheering all this on, and laughing at anyone who believed them.

29/35
🇺 magnusxander.bsky.social
I think their principles only apply to themselves

30/35
🇺 thecrowtoldme.bsky.social
Recall the use of unmarked vehicles in 2020:

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020...
bafkreiahflubjdvtbz4ojv6ijdymac3vvxh4joxidq4bqv5qmginqmnfay@jpeg


31/35
🇺 benbennybee.bsky.social
This is NOT OK!!!

32/35
🇺 veertjephilips.bsky.social

bafkreifd4rvjxfk3armyzcou3veyxwru34azjwimfkwtx5tta6v5i7kbem@jpeg


33/35
🇺 davemaru.bsky.social
There were practicing this back during the George Floyd protests. Back then it was prison guards

34/35
🇺 srput.bsky.social
It will be wrapped in a flag carrying a cross!

35/35
🇺 grammy1947.bsky.social
SO WHERE IS THIS WOMAN AND WHO ARE THESE THUG'S?

To post tweets in this format, more info here: https://www.thecoli.com/threads/tips-and-tricks-for-posting-the-coli-megathread.984734/post-52211196
 
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