A lawyer for a Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University who was detained by US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filed an emergency motion on Thursday requesting that the government produce her after she was shipped off to Louisiana despite a previous court order that she should not be removed from Massachusetts.

At court hearing in Boston on Thursday morning, the district judge Indira Talwani initially issued an order giving the government until Friday to answer why Rumeysa Ozturk was being detained. Talwani also ordered that Ozturk not be moved outside the district of Massachusetts without 48 hours advance notice.

However, US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (Ice), which is part of DHS, said on Thursday that Ozturk was being held at a detention center in Basile, Louisiana, and had spoken to her lawyer. A senior DHS spokesperson also confirmed Ozturk’s detention and the termination of her student visa.

Dramatic footage had emerged on Wednesday evening of the moment US immigration officials, wearing masks and hoodies, detained the Tufts University doctoral student in Massachusetts in the street, handcuffed her and bustled her into an unmarked car.

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 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.

Footage shows Ice officials detaining Turkish student at Tufts – video

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 DHS and Ice to give the court 48 hours’ notice before attempting to take her out of Massachusetts.

A federal judge then ordered DHS and Ice to respond in court on Thursday morning to an emergency habeas request to produce Ozturk.

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.

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.

“DHS and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. 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 common sense security,” the spokesperson told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The DHS did not provide examples of Ozturk’s support of Hamas, which is designated by the US government as a terrorist organization.

“Rumeysa has been my student, colleague, friend for over a decade,” Reyyan Bilge, a friend of Oztuck, posted on X. “She does not carry a hateful bone in her body let alone being antisemitic.”

Advocates are planning a rally on Wednesday evening to demand her release.