Because the solar started to set Tuesday over Somerville, Massachusetts, Turkish nationwide Rumeysa Ozturk was on her option to meet mates at an Iftar dinner the place they might break their Ramadan quick.
However she would by no means make to the gathering, in response to her legal professional, Masha Khanbabai. As a substitute, the 30-year-old was arrested and bodily restrained by immigration officers close to her condominium, near Tufts College’s Somerville campus the place she was a PhD scholar, Khanbabai informed CNN.
Neighborhood surveillance video seems to point out six plainclothes officers surrounding Ozturk as she walked alone. The officers solely present their badges after she was restrained together with her fingers behind her again, the video exhibits.
Ozturk is certainly one of a number of overseas nationals affiliated with prestigious American universities to be arrested underneath the Trump administration for purported actions associated to terrorist organizations, together with Mahmoud Khalil, a distinguished Palestinian activist, who was taken into custody at his Columbia College housing earlier this month.
Ozturk “engaged in actions in help of Hamas,” a Division of Homeland Safety spokesperson stated in an announcement Wednesday. The spokesperson didn’t specify what these alleged actions have been.
No costs have been filed towards Ozturk, her legal professional informed CNN. Right here’s what we learn about her arrest:
Who’s Rumeysa Ozturk?
Ozturk was enrolled in a PhD program at Tufts College on a legitimate F-1 visa, which permits worldwide college students to pursue full time educational research, in response to Khanbabai.
In March 2024, Ozturk cowrote an op-ed in the school’s newspaper the place she criticized Tufts’ response to the pro-Palestinian motion.
Tufts College officers stated the varsity had no prior information of the arrest.
The college “didn’t share any info with federal authorities previous to the occasion, and the placement the place this came about just isn’t affiliated with Tufts College,” Tufts president Sunil Kumar stated in a written assertion. “From what now we have been informed subsequently, the scholar’s visa standing has been terminated, and we search to verify whether or not that info is true.”
In an up to date assertion despatched late Wednesday, which included extra steerage and assets to different worldwide college students, Tufts’ President Sunil Kumar stated he shared the issues of Massachusetts Lawyer Common Andrea Pleasure Campbell in calling the video of Ozturk’s arrest “disturbing.”
“We acknowledge how horrifying and distressing this case is for her, her family members, and the bigger neighborhood right here at Tufts, particularly our worldwide college students, employees, and college who could also be feeling susceptible or unsettled by these occasions,” Kumar added.
The college is in contact with native, state, and federal elected officers and “hope that Rumeysa is supplied the chance to avail herself of her due course of rights,” he stated.
A spokesperson for the State Division declined to touch upon the specifics of the case.
“Resulting from privateness and different concerns, and visa confidentiality, we typically won’t touch upon Division actions with respect to particular instances,” a State Division spokesperson informed CNN.
Sudden arrest caught on digicam
Surveillance video launched Wednesday and obtained from a neighbor by the advocacy group Muslim Justice League seems to point out six plainclothes officers casually approaching Ozturk as she walks alone on a sidewalk.
One officer sporting a hat and hoodie grabs her arms, inflicting Ozturk to shriek in concern as one other pulls out a hid badge on a lanyard and confiscates her cellular phone.
Shortly afterward, the officers all pull fabric coverings over their mouths and noses, a few of them sporting sun shades, as certainly one of them restrains Ozturk’s fingers behind her again.
Because the officers say, “We’re the police,” an individual not seen within the video will be heard responding, “Yeah, you don’t appear like it. Why are you hiding your faces?”
One minute after the encounter started, Ozturk is walked right into a ready SUV and pushed away.
ICE has not responded to CNN’s request for touch upon Ozturk’s case.
The usage of facial coverings matches an account of the arrest of Georgetown College fellow Bada Khan Suri, whose legal professional Nermeen Arastu told CNN the officers who detained Khan Suri have been “brandishing weapons.”
“ICE brokers got here within the night time, took him captive, taking him from his spouse and kids, and hauled him away to an unknown location earlier than transferring him to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, removed from his household and attorneys,” Arastu added on Suri.
Detained in Louisiana
After she was detained on Tuesday, Ozturk’s legal professional filed a petition in federal district courtroom in Boston difficult the legality of her detention and requesting to not transfer her out of the district of Massachusetts.
“(Ozturk) shall not be moved exterior the District of Massachusetts with out first offering advance discover of the supposed transfer,” District Choose Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, wrote Tuesday in an order obtained by CNN affiliate WHDH. Talwani ordered the federal government to answer Ozturk’s petition by Friday.
However on Wednesday a spokesperson for the Division of Homeland Safety stated she had been transferred to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Heart in Basile.
It isn’t clear whether or not Ozturk had already been transferred out of Boston to Louisiana by the point choose Talwani issued her order.
Ozturk is now the third worldwide scholar identified to be transferred to Louisiana after being detained by federal officers. Khalil and Georgetown fellow Badar Khan Suri have been each transferred to an ICE detention facility in Jena.
“Like all the opposite immigration instances associated to worldwide college students and activists who’ve spoken up in regards to the atrocities in Palestine, the federal government throws round wild accusations however gives no proof,” Khanbabai stated. “We hope Rumeysa will likely be launched instantly.”
CNN’s Amanda Musa, Braden Walker, Caroll Alvarado and Zenebou Sylla contributed to this report.
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