On March 26, 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security detained Rümeysa Öztürk, a third-year doctoral student in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in apparent retaliation for an opinion piece that she published in the Tufts student newspaper in March 2024.

Öztürk, a Turkish national, had studied in the US since 2018, when she received a Fulbright scholarship to complete her masters studies at Columbia University. In March 2024, she co-authored an opinion essay that criticized the Tufts administration’s response to student demands to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and to divest from companies with ties to Israel. In early March 2025, Canary Mission, a US-based organization which publishes online profiles on professors and students who engage in pro-Palestinian activism on campus, published Öztürk’s resume and photo and linked to the opinion piece that she had co-written.

A surveillance video that circulated online showed Öztürk’s arrest on March 26. In the video, six figures in plain clothes (not law enforcement uniforms), wearing hoodies or hats and face coverings, surround and grab at Öztürk, who vocalizes alarm, apparently not initially understanding that the figures were public officers. After calming her down, they handcuff her and lead her away. According to her lawyer, Öztürk’s location was unknown for about 24 hours following her arrest. On March 27, Öztürk was moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in southern Louisiana (over 1,600 miles away), despite an existing court order that she could not be removed from Massachusetts without 48 hours advance notice.

Öztürk has not been charged with a crime. She is being held under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that purportedly grants the US secretary of state the power to deport any individual whose presence in the US poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” (This is the same section used to justify the government’s detention of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil (see report) and Georgetown University postdoctoral researcher Badar Khan Suri (see report).)

Scholars at Risk is concerned about the arrest by state officers lacking clear, visible identification of a doctoral student legally present in the country and their apparent attempt to circumvent legal procedures that would allow the student to challenge the basis of their actions. SAR is further concerned about the state’s attempt to revoke the student’s visa in retaliation for her exercise of the right of free expression. Authorities have an obligation to refrain from sanctioning or otherwise retaliating against individuals based on their nonviolent expressive activity and must ensure that any legal or immigration procedures follow due process. The use of the justice or immigration systems to punish nonviolent expression undermines academic freedom and democratic society generally.

Update 2/10/2026: An immigration judge formally ended removal proceedings against Öztürk on February 9, 2026 after determining that the Department of Homeland Security hadn’t met its burden to prove her removability.

Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/us/ice-tufts-student-detained-rumeysa-ozturk.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/us/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-student-detained.html
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/03/27/tufts-graduate-student-taken-ice-custody
https://theintercept.com/2025/03/30/tufts-rumeysa-ozturk-ice-immigration-op-ed/
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025/03/federal-judge-orders-rumeysa-ozturk-not-be-removed-from-united-states
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/03/29/rumeysa-ozturk-tc-20-moved-to-louisiana-ice-detention-center-after-judge-orders-she-stay-in-massachusetts/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-judge-halts-deportation-turkish-014932976.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/27/us/rumeysa-ozturk-detained-what-we-know/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/09/us/rumeysa-ozturk-immigration-detention-terminated