Rubio forcefully defends warrantless arrest of student by ICE

At a press conference during his Guyana visit earlier today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defiantly pushed back on criticism the administration has faced for the abduction of a Tufts student by ICE agents on Tuesday. 

“We revoked her visa,” Rubio confirmed. 

Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old PhD student, is in the US on an F1 student visa from Turkey. She was arrested and detained by ICE agents late Tuesday, as seen in this video.

Rubio continued, “let me be abundantly clear. If you apply for a visa […] to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa.”

However, he provided no evidence that she had been involved in disruptive activities. Rubio added that since her student visa had been revoked, she was out of status and would be deported. 

Ozturk was accosted Tuesday evening by agents wearing masks and hoodies near her home in Somerville, The Guardian reported today. Footage recorded by a bystander shows four men and two women handcuffing Ozturk and spiriting her away in an unmarked SUV. 

According to comments by a bystander shared with Zeteo, the vehicle had been parked there since 4 am that morning. 

Yesterday, assistant secretary of DHS Tricia McLaughlin claimed on X that Ozturk had been marked for removal by ICE because she had been found to be “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization.” McLaughlin refrained from specifying what those activities were. 

Ozturk had been involved in pro-Palestinian activism at Tufts, the Washington Post reported. She co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts newspaper with three other students last year, criticizing the university’s response to anti-Israel resolutions passed by the student body. 

Ozturk is being represented by immigration attorney Mahsa Khanbabai. Unaware of Ozturk’s whereabouts after the abduction, Khanbabai filed an emergency petition that same evening requesting that she not be moved out of state, which was granted by a federal judge. 

However, a perusal of the ICE locator database the next day showed that Ozturk is being detained at the ICE facility in Louisiana. It is unclear whether she was transported before the judge’s order blocking her move, or after, which would be a violation. 

A protest against Ozturk’s arrest, organized by the group Massachusetts Peace Action, was held on Wednesday evening. “Thousands came at six hours’ notice,” said a Somerville resident. 

A statement released by the Embassy of Turkey said that they had been in contact with the state department and ICE, and that they were closely monitoring the situation. 

“Revoking her visa because of her political viewpoint is not how America works,” Massachusetts congressman Rep. Jake Auchincloss said in a post on X.

“This is authoritarianism, and we will not let this stand,” said Massachusetts senator Ed Markey in a post on X. 

Ozturk’s arrest by ICE follows a number of other such warrantless arrests, visa revocations, and planned deportations of foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian activism after the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, and the subsequent war in Gaza. 

Many have wondered how the administration is choosing students to target out of the thousands who participated in pro-Palestinian protests in campuses last year. According to reporting by both the Intercept and The Guardian, a far-right Zionist organization known as Betar Worldwide may be responsible. 

The organization is known to be preparing dossiers of students it wants to deport. They have handed over “thousands of names” of students and faculty to administration officials.

Betar Worldwide took responsibility for having targeted Ozturk after her abduction became known. 

“She was on our list,” they said on X. “We will be making a new submission Monday with approximately 1800 more jihadis.”