Rumeysa Ozturk: The latest student detained for pro-Palestine views

Following the unlawful detention of Mahmoud Khalil earlier this month, American immigration officials have arrested another student for pro-Palestine activism. Yesterday, Rumeysa Ozturk, a 31-year-old grad student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was approached by two men wearing hoodies, hand-cuffed and marched off to an unmarked car – a neighbour who saw the incident said it “looked like a kidnapping”. Ozturk, who is originally from Turkey, faces deportation, as she is in the US on a student visa which has now been revoked. Here’s what you need to know about what happened and how it fits into a wider wave of repression.

WHY WAS OZTURK DETAINED?

Like Khalil, Ozturk hasn’t been charged with any crime, but it’s clear that she is being targeted due to her activism around Palestine.  A US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed as much when she posted on X that Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organisation that relishes the killing of Americans”. This is the playbook now: the Trump administration is designating any expression of support for Palestinian rights, no matter how mild, as “supporting Hamas” and persecuting people on that basis. 

Neither McLaughlin nor anyone else has specified what activities, exactly, Ozturk is being accused of. But we do know that last March she co-authored an opinion piece for a campus newspaper which called for Tufts to divest funds from Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”. This article also included an appeal for “the equal dignity and humanity of all appeal” – hardly extremist rhetoric. “Based on patterns we are seeing across the country, her exercising her free speech rights appears to have played a role in her detention,” her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said in a statement. 

In the lead-up to her detention, Ozturk had been targeted by Canary Mission, a pro-Israel blacklisting and doxxing site, which accused her of “engaging in anti-Israel activism” – the only examples it offers are co-authoring the article mentioned above and expressing support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This comes amid a larger effort by some pro-Israel groups to deport students who have engaged in pro-Palestine protests: one such group, Betar US, has even compiled a “deportation list” which it has submitted to the Trump administration. 

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW? 

Ozturk has been transferred to Louisiana, despite a Massachusetts judge ordering that she was not to be removed from the state for 48 hours – it’s not a great sign for American democracy that ICE officials are ignoring the courts and doing whatever they want. The Trump administration will want the case to be tried in Louisiana because it’s a Republican-controlled state where the judiciary is more sympathetic to their aims. This is why they transferred Khalil there, too, but his lawyers recently succeeded in forcing his case to be heard in New Jersey. Hopefully, this precedent will mean that Ozturk doesn’t have to stay in Louisiana for long and that she will be able to challenge her deportation on more neutral ground. There have been large protests in Somerville, Massachusetts (where Tufts is located), with hundreds of students gathering last night to demand her release. 

HOW DOES THIS FIT INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE? 

As well as the ongoing detention of Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump administration is carrying out a wave of repression against students and professors who have taken part in pro-Palestine activism. Immigration officials are trying to deport Yunseo Chung, a Korean-American student with permanent legal residency who has lived in the US since she was seven years old – these efforts have been blocked, for now, after a judge issued a restraining order against the US government. Badar Khan Suri, an Indian student studying at Georgetown University, has been detained and Momodou Taal, a doctoral student at Cornell who has both Gambian and British citizenship, faces deportation. Earlier in March, Rasha Alawieh a Lebanese doctor and assistant professor at Brown university was barred from re-entering the US and deported after being accused of having photos “sympathetic” to Hezbollah on her phone – she was deported in direct defiance of an order from a judge, once again showing the Trump administration’s flagrant disregard for the rule of law. This could all just be the beginning: both Trump and Marco Rubio, his Secretary of State, have promised more arrests to come.