Footage has emerged of the moment US immigration officials, wearing masks and hoodies, detained a Tufts University doctoral student in Massachusetts in the street and bustled her into an unmarked car.
Rumeysa Ozturk was detained on Tuesday by federal immigration agents, and on Wednesday was being held at the South Louisiana Ice processing center, according to the government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainee locator page.
The video, taken from a security camera on a building, shows Ozturk walking along the street when she is approached by several masked figures, who forcibly take her phone and backpack and place her in handcuffs. The officials, some with badges around their neck, all have their faces covered.
After she screams, an unseen onlooker can be heard responding.
“Is this a kidnapping?” asks the bystander, who appeared to be recording the arrest, footage that later circulated on social media.
In separate security camera footage, the agents can be heard responding: “We’re the police.”
The bystander replies: “You don’t look like it. Why are you hiding your faces?”
The transfer of Ozturk appeared to violate a federal court order from Tuesday, which directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Ice to give the court 48 hours’ notice before attempting to take her out of Massachusetts.
A federal judge has since ordered DHS and Ice to respond to an emergency request in court to produce Ozturk by 9am ET on Thursday.
Tuesday’s detention is the latest in a series of arrests of students who are not accused of any crime but have been involved in pro-Palestinian activism on student campus, in a sharp escalation of anti-immigration crackdowns and attacks on political speech by the Trump administration.
In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said on Wednesday that Ozturk had been “granted the privilege to be in this country on a visa”. Without supplying any proof, the spokesperson accused her of supporting Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza and led the attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, prompting Israel’s war on Gaza.
“DHS and Ice investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans,” the DHS spokesperson said. “A visa is a privilege, not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.”
Officials may have already revoked the student visa for Ozturk, who is from Turkey, according to Reuters. A Tuesday message from Tufts University’s president, Sunil Kumar, said that the university “had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event”. Ozturk is pursuing her doctorate in philosophy at the university and is a Fulbright scholar.
“From what we have been told subsequently, the student’s visa has been terminated, and we seek to confirm whether that information is true,” Kumar’s letter reads.
Ozturk, 30, was detained leaving her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, on the outskirts of Boston, on her way to break her Ramadan fast with friends.
According to news reports, Ozturk’s attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, had not been able to contact her client. On Wednesday afternoon, Khanbabai submitted an emergency motion to produce Ozturk before a court to show justification for her detention.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) advocacy group said in a statement: “We unequivocally condemn the abduction of a young Muslim hijab-wearing scholar by masked federal agents in broad daylight. This alarming act of repression is a direct assault on free speech and academic freedom.”
News reports say that Ozturk had been involved in pro-Palestinian activism at Tufts. She had co-written an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper, criticizing the university’s response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Palestinians.
Earlier this month, DHS agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, who helped organize the pro-Palestinian movement at the school. The administration used a little-known statute that it asserts allows the secretary of state to detain and deport any non-citizen who may be considered by the government to be a threat to US foreign policy interests.
Ozturk’s attorney said that her general location and work history had recently been added to Canary Mission, a website tracking pro-Palestinian activists.
Maya Yang, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting
