Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested by six masked federal immigration agents in Somerville on Tuesday, was sent to a Louisiana detention facility, the Boston Globe reported.
Ozturk was sent to Louisiana even after U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani ordered Ozturk to remain in the state or give the government 48 hours’ notice before moving her.
The news of her being sent to Louisiana was according to her lawyer and court records obtained by the Globe.
The timing for when she was sent to Louisiana is not clear, as is when the federal judge’s order was issued.
“I don’t understand why it took the government nearly 24 hours to let me know her whereabouts,” her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, told the Globe. ”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 Ph.D. program.”
MassLive contacted Khanbabai by phone and email for more information. She did not immediately respond.
It also remains unclear why the Trump administration ordered her arrest, though she supported pro-Palestinian protesters while at Tufts, the Globe reported.
Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish national, was headed to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast on Tuesday, Khanbabai previously told MassLive. No charges have been filed against her.
“This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released,” said a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District. “And we won’t stand by while the Trump Administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms.”
Khanbabai filed a petition in federal court challenging Ozturk’s detention and asking that she not be moved out of Massachusetts. A copy of the petition was not publicly available because it concerns immigration. It is not clear what prompted the detainment of Ozturk.
A senior spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigations found Ozturk took part in “activities in support of Hamas.”
“It looked like a kidnapping,” said Michael Mathis, 32, a software engineer whose surveillance camera picked up the footage of the arrest. “They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They’re covering their faces. They’re in unmarked vehicles.”
Oztruk is studying child and human development at Tufts and is set to complete her program this year, according to an op-ed she co-authored in the university’s student newspaper.
The op-ed calls for the university to accept a series of resolutions passed by the Tufts student senate, among which was a call to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
In a statement, Tufts said it was working to verify information it received about her visa having been terminated. Khanbabai said she was maintaining valid F-1 visa status as a student at Tufts.
Ozturk’s detainment comes just over a week after a Brown University professor was deported after U.S. Customs and Border Patrol terminated her visa. The federal government said the professor, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, had photos of leaders of Hezbollah and Iran on her phone.
It also comes after the arrest of three students at Columbia University involved in pro-Palestinian protests there, which began with Mahmoud Khalil earlier in March. Khalil, 30, a lawful U.S. resident who was a graduate student at Columbia until December, was arrested by federal immigration agents and flown to an immigration jail in Louisiana, according to the Associated Press.
He has not been charged with a crime, but President Donald Trump has argued that protesters forfeited their right to remain in the country by protests that he claimed supported Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
