Politics

AG Campbell says she’s ‘monitoring’ situation after Tufts grad student arrested by ICE

“This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell speaks at a news conference in February 2025 in Boston. Michael Casey / AP

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Wednesday that her office is “closely monitoring” the situation around the arrest of Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk. 

Ozturk, a Turkish national and Fulbright Scholar who is pursuing her PhD in the university’s Child Study and Human Development department, was detained by federal authorities near her home in Somerville on Tuesday evening, a moment that was captured on video.  

“The footage of Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest — a student here legally — is disturbing,” Campbell said in her statement. “Based on what we know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views. This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court. My office is closely monitoring this matter as it develops.”

As of Wednesday evening, ICE records listed Ozturk as being held in the South Louisiana Correctional Center in Basile, Louisiana.

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SEIU Massachusetts State Council President Dave Foley denounced the detention of Ozturk, a member of SEIU Local 509, in a statement, saying her arrest is part of a “despicable effort to stifle speech by immigrants who express views that Donald Trump and his surrogates simply don’t like.”

“Free speech and the right to protest are the very foundation upon which the labor movement was built,” Foley said. “Using detention and the threat of deportation as tactics to target activists is an attempt to deter us from advocating for a better world. It is intended to send a clear and chilling message that anyone who challenges injustice will be met with retribution. When a student, worker, or any member of our community is punished for exercising their rights, we all suffer, and standing up against these tactics is critical to the strength and integrity of any social movement.

Ozturk was apparently associated with pro-Palestine activism on campus, but exactly why she was targeted by the Trump administration was not immediately clear, The Boston Globe reports.

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Federal officials told school leaders that her visa status was terminated. 

A judge had ordered ICE not to move Ozturk outside of Massachusetts without prior notice. The timing of the order’s issuance and Ozturk’s transfer out of state was unclear on Wednesday, according to the Globe.

Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk’s attorney, told the Globe she is not aware of any charges against her client.

“I don’t understand why it took the government nearly 24 hours to let me know her whereabouts,” Khanbabai said. ”Why she was transferred to Louisiana despite the court’s order is beyond me. Rumeysa should immediately be brought back to Massachusetts, released, and allowed to return to complete her PhD program.”

In a statement to the community on Tuesday night, Tufts University President Sunil Kumar confirmed an international graduate student was arrested outside of an off-campus apartment building in Somerville. 

“The university had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event, and the location where this took place is not affiliated with Tufts University,” Kumar wrote. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told the Globe, without evidence, that Ozturk “engaged in support of Hamas,” the U.S.-designated terror group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that began the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 

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“A visa is a privilege not a right,” the spokesperson told the Globe. “Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.”

According to the Globe, while Ozturk had voiced support for the pro-Palestine movement at Tufts, she was not known as a prominent leader. Reyyan Bilge, an assistant teaching professor in psychology at Northeastern University who has known Ozturk for more than a decade, told the newspaper her friend is soft-spoken, kind, and a “decent” person. 

“She does not carry a hateful bone in her body let alone being antisemitic,” Bilge wrote on X.

Her friend, like other Muslims, was concerned about the human rights of Palestinians, Bilge told the Globe.

“But that’s freedom of speech,” she said. “That’s just being human.”

Ozturk is not the first international student involved with protests against Israel’s military actions in Gaza to be targeted for detention by the Trump administration. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who was a graduate student at Columbia until December, was arrested earlier this month. This week, an international student at Cornell University who was involved in pro-Palestinian activism on campus, was asked to surrender to  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and his visa was revoked by the State Department.

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Dialynn Dwyer is a reporter and editor at Boston.com, covering breaking and local news across Boston and New England.

 

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