BOSTON (AP) — A Turkish student ambushed by federal police as she walked on the streets of a Boston suburb is the latest supporter of Palestinian causes to be swept up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants who have expressed their political views.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, a doctoral student at Tufts University, had been moved out of Massachusetts by the time her lawyer went to court and a judge ordered her to be kept in the state, U.S. government lawyers said in a court document Thursday.
The lawyers said that Ozturk, who was detained Tuesday shortly after she left her home in Somerville, was moved to a U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana. They said they made her lawyers aware that she was being moved there and they helped facilitate contact with her Wednesday night.
A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said federal authorities detained Ozturk and revoked her visa after an investigation found she had “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,” the spokesperson added. “Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security.”
The DHS did not provide evidence of Ozturk’s support of Hamas, which is designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
Friends and colleagues of Ozturk said she was not closely involved in pro-Palestinian protests that broke out on campuses last spring. Her only known activism, they said, was co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that called on Tufts University to engage with student demands to cut ties with Israel.
“To my knowledge, the only thing I know of that Rumeysa organized was a Thanksgiving potluck,” said Jennifer Hoyden, a close friend of Ozturk’s who studied with her at Columbia University’s Teachers College….