Mass. Lawmakers Call for Release of Tufts Student Taken by ICE

Top Mass. lawmakers are calling for the release of Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk following her arrest by federal immigration officers on the street last week over her pro-Palestine advocacy.

Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley (D-Mass.) called Ozturk’s arrest a “five-alarm fire” in a Monday statement. The grad student, a 30-year-old Turkish international PhD student and Fulbright Scholar, is currently being held in a detention facility in southern Louisiana.

“Rumeysa Ozturk is a peaceful protestor, grad student, and my constituent who has had her constitutional rights to due process and free speech ripped away,” Pressley wrote. “This unlawful and authoritarian behavior is unacceptable and she must be released immediately.”

Ozturk was on her way to meet friends to break her Ramadan fast when she was detained by a group of masked, plainclothes officers. The video of her arrest, captured by a neighbor’s security camera footage, has been widely circulated on social media.

Since Ozturk’s detention, fears have increased that similar politically-fueled detentions may come to Harvard’s campus, and administrators have released “know-your-rights” guidance and immigration services to the student body since.

Mass. Senator Elizabeth A. Warren (D-Mass.), who lives just two miles away from Tufts’ campus, also condemned the student’s arrest in a Monday statement, writing that she was “deeply disturbed.”

“The Trump administration is ripping students like Rumeysa out of their communities without due process and undermining our basic freedoms,” Warren wrote. “Rep. Pressley, Sen. Markey, and I led over 30 of our colleagues in demanding answers, and we’re staying on this.”

On Thursday, 34 congressional Democrats sent a letter to several members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet responsible for immigration calling for the restoration of Ozturk’s visa and her release from detention.

“The rationale for this arrest appears to be this student’s expression of her political views,” the lawmakers wrote. “We are calling for full due process in this case and are seeking answers about this case and about ICE’s policy that has led to the identification and arrest of university students with valid legal status.”

The arrest comes after Ozturk published an op-ed with three other students in 2024 calling for Tufts University to “engage with and actualize” Israel-Palestine-related resolutions passed by the university’s student government.

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio stated that Ozturk’s visa had been revoked — around 300 student visas have been revoked in total by the Trump administration.

“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa,” Rubio said at a press conference on Thursday.

Kseniia Petrova, a Russian researcher at Harvard Medical School, was also detained this week by immigration officials, as well as an Iranian student at the University of Alabama and a graduate student at the University of Minnesota.

Condemnations of the incident were also flowing from the State House. State Senator William N. Brownsberger ’78, whose district encompasses parts of Allston and Cambridge, said he was “sickened” and “angered” after watching the video of Ozturk’s detention.

Brownsberger suggested Ozturk had been denied due process, adding that he hoped the court system would act as a check on ICE’s actions. “This country is better than the kind of lawless detention that we’re seeing,” he said.

In a blog post last week, Brownsberger also endorsed two bills that would prevent state and local law enforcement from carrying out federal immigration enforcement. “Consensus on a state legislative response has so far eluded us, but the need for clarity in state policy is even more compelling now,” he wrote.

Another state senator, Jamie B. Eldridge — whose district encompasses parts of Middlesex County — made a direct appeal to the state’s universities.

“I am calling on Tufts University and every institution of higher education in Massachusetts to implement emergency protocols to protect their international students: legal representation, rapid response mechanisms, and public advocacy,” Eldridge wrote in a statement on Friday.

“Even if ICE operates outside direct state control, that does not mean Massachusetts must remain silent or passive,” Eldridge wrote.

—Staff writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at megan.blonigen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen.

—Staff writer Frances Y. Yong can be reached at frances.yong@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @frances_yong_.