The Trump administration arrests a Turkish university student for defending the Palestinian cause.

An international student in a graduate program at Tufts University was arrested Tuesday outside an off-campus apartment building, according to the university 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 attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai. Ozturk, a Muslim, was on her way to break the Ramadan fast with friends Tuesday night when she was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents near her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, Khanbabai said. "We do not know her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her," she said. "No charges have been filed against Rumeysa at this time, to our knowledge."

A statement attributed to a Trump administration Homeland Security spokesperson said Wednesday that Ozturk had "engaged in activities supporting" Hamas and that this was considered "grounds for suspending visa issuance." Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records showed that a person named Ozturk was being held Wednesday at a Louisiana detention center. Late Tuesday, Judge Indira Talwani of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts had ordered the government not to remove Ozturk out of state without prior written notice to the court. It was unclear Wednesday whether the government had provided written notice of his removal from Massachusetts.

Ozturk has filed a court petition seeking a judge's determination of whether his detention is lawful, naming as defendants Patricia Hyde, the acting director of ICE in Boston, and other agency officials. On Tuesday night, Tufts University President Sunil Kumar emailed the university community to explain that school administrators had no advance knowledge of the plan to detain the student and had not shared any information with federal authorities in advance. “We know tonight’s news will be distressing for some members of our community, especially members of our international community,” Kumar wrote.

A video circulating on social media Wednesday shows a woman wearing a hijab and white coat surrounded by several people on a sidewalk. Her cell phone and then her purse are forcibly taken from her hand, she is handcuffed, and she is led by masked plainclothes officers toward cars without any markings.

Ozturk was listed as one of several authors of an op-ed published last March in the Tufts student newspaper. The essay criticized university leaders for their response to demands that Tufts "recognize the Palestinian genocide" and divest from companies with ties to Israel. She is one of numerous students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration. Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian national and doctoral student at the University of Alabama, was detained off campus by federal immigration officials, the school said in a statement Wednesday. It was unclear why the student was detained, and U.S. immigration officials did not respond to inquiries from this newspaper Wednesday night.

She is one of numerous students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration. Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian national and doctoral student at the University of Alabama, was detained off campus by federal immigration officials, the university said in a statement Wednesday. It is unclear why the student was detained, and immigration authorities have not responded to the university's questions. New York Times.

Earlier this month, Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests (and a permanent resident of the United States), was arrested by federal immigration agents in New York. Although he has not been charged with a crime, the administration has argued that he should be deported to prevent the spread of antisemitism.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said Ozturk was detained under a rarely used provision of Immigration and Nationality Law, which the administration is also using to try to deport Khalil. The measure says the secretary of state can initiate removal proceedings against any noncitizen whose presence in the United States is deemed a threat to the country's foreign policy interests.

"Disturbing images," says Massachusetts U.S. attorney

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell says her office is "closely monitoring this matter as it develops." The footage of the arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk, a student in the country legally, is disturbing. Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal government chose to ambush and detain her, seemingly targeting a law-abiding individual, because of her political views. That is not public safety; it is public safety, it is public insecurity.

While studying psychology as an undergraduate at Istanbul Sehir University, Ozturk worked closely with one of her professors, Fatima Tuba Yaylaci, in the psychology lab and as a student assistant. Ozturk was interested in child development and how children understand concepts like death and life, the professor explains. "She wouldn't hurt a fly," Yaylaci said of Ozturk in an interview Wednesday. "She's extremely sensitive to human rights, to not harming people, to diversity. She's someone who wants to include everyone." The professor says they had never spoken about Palestinians during their time together, before Ozturk received a Fulbright scholarship and enrolled in a master's program at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she graduated in 2020.

", says the professor, explaining that a couple of weeks ago she received a message from Ozturk asking her to remove photos of her with friends from the lab's social media account. Ozturk told her she was being doxxed, that is, that personal information about her was being maliciously leaked online. "Today is a very hard day for me, I am very sad," Yaylaci said. "I hope this issue will be resolved. She is a very valuable researcher for children in Turkey and the United States."

Canary Mission, a group that says it fights anti-Jewish hatred on college campuses, posted a photo of Ozturk on its website that identifies her as a Tufts student and says she "participated in anti-Israel activism in March 2024," a possible reference to her Pro-Palestinian activists accuse the group of exposing their identities and making them targets for harassment.

President Trump signed an executive order on January 29 saying his administration would take action to combat antisemitism, including on campuses. The order said it would be U.S. policy to use "all available and appropriate legal tools," including the "removal" of aliens who engage in "unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence."

"No one should disappear from the streets of Somerville, or anywhere in America," Jessie Rossman, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said Wednesday. "The government should immediately release them to their friends and the Massachusetts community."