Boston: A Tufts University PhD student has returned to Massachusetts following her release from a Louisiana immigration detention center, where she was held for more than six weeks. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was detained amid an ongoing crackdown by former President Donald Trump’s administration on pro-Palestinian campus activism.
Ozturk’s arrest in March came shortly after she co-authored an op-ed in Tufts’ student newspaper criticizing the university’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza. The U.S. Department of State revoked her student visa, and she was detained by plainclothes officers in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Speaking at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Saturday, Ozturk said she was relieved to return to her studies and the Tufts community. “This has been a very difficult time for me,” she said during a press conference, flanked by her legal team and members of Congress.
She expressed deep gratitude to her supporters, including faculty and fellow students who had written letters during her incarceration. She also called for continued attention to the plight of others still held in detention. “America is the greatest democracy in the world,” she said. “I have faith in the American system of justice.”
Ozturk, 30, was taken into custody on March 25, shortly after the publication of the op-ed that called on Tufts to divest from companies linked to Israel and recognize what she and others described as a “Palestinian genocide”. Her attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that the government’s actions were a direct violation of her First Amendment rights and part of an intentional effort to silence dissent.
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After her arrest, she was briefly held in Vermont before being transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Her legal challenge is now being overseen by U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Burlington, Vermont, who granted her immediate release on Friday, stating she had raised “substantial claims” of rights violations.
Representative Ayanna Pressley, who visited Ozturk during her detention along with two other Democratic lawmakers from Massachusetts, condemned the conditions of her confinement. Pressley described them as “squalid and inhumane”, and said Ozturk was denied adequate medical attention for severe asthma symptoms.
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“Rumeysa’s experience was not just an act of cruelty, it was a deliberate, coordinated attempt to intimidate, to instill fear, to send a chilling message to anyone who dares to speak out against injustice,” Pressley said.
Ozturk’s case continues to raise alarms among civil liberties advocates, who warn that the government’s handling of her visa and detention could set a troubling precedent for freedom of expression on U.S. campuses.
