International Student at Tufts University Detained by Immigration Authorities

The university said it would help the student obtain outside legal resources if requested.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on a street in Sommerville, Mass., on March 26, 2025. AP Photo

An international graduate student at Tufts University was detained late on March 25 by federal immigration authorities, university officials said.

The student was taken into custody by federal authorities outside an off-campus apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts, Tufts President Sunil Kumar said in a campus-wide email seen by The Epoch Times.

In the email, Kumar stated that the university had been informed that the student’s visa had been terminated and that he was still working to verify that claim. He emphasized that Tufts had no prior knowledge of the incident and had not provided any information to federal authorities before the student’s detention.

Kumar also told the campus community that the university would help the student obtain outside legal resources if requested.

“We realize that tonight’s news will be distressing to some members of our community, particularly the members of our international community,” the email read. “We will continue to provide information, support, and resources in the days ahead as more details become available to us.”

Meanwhile, an attorney has filed a petition in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts seeking the release of the student, Rumeysa Ozturk, from custody. The filing identifies Ozturk as a Turkish national.

In response to that petition, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order preventing Ozturk from being transferred out of Massachusetts without prior notice to the court.

Ozturk’s attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, told The Epoch Times that immigration enforcement agents stopped the student near her home while she was on her way to break her Ramadan fast with friends.

“We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her,” Khanbabai said in an emailed statement, noting that no charge has so far been filed against her client. “We hope Rumeysa will be released immediately.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not respond to a request for comment.

It remains unclear whether Ozturk’s detention is of same nature as recent high-profile arrests and deportation threats faced by international students involved in pro-Palestinian protests in 2024. However, Ozturk was a co-author of a student newspaper article urging Tufts to sever financial ties with Israel in response to Israel’s retaliatory offensive following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks.

The article, published a year ago in the Tufts Daily, criticized Kumar for what it described as a “dismissive” response to the student government’s resolutions. These resolutions called on the university to acknowledge the “Palestinian genocide” and divest from companies that directly or indirectly do business with Israel.

In the piece, Ozturk and her co-authors described the resolutions as a “sincere effort to hold Israel accountable” for what they characterized as “indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians.”

Ozturk’s case follows similar deportation attempts against other international students linked to pro-Palestinian activism.

Earlier this month, judges blocked the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and protest leader; and Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow. Federal officials have informally accused Khalil of engaging in “activities aligned with Hamas” and have accused Suri of “spreading Hamas propaganda,” “promoting antisemitism on social media,” and having “close connections” to an unnamed Hamas adviser.

In each case, immigration authorities have invoked a provision of U.S. immigration law that allows for the deportation of foreign nationals if the secretary of state has good reason to believe that their presence or activities in the United States pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” to the country.

Khalil, who is fighting deportation in court, is also named in a federal lawsuit led by victims of Hamas’s atrocities. The suit, filed Monday in New York, alleges that Khalil and other pro-Palestinian activist groups had prior knowledge of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and, in its aftermath, acted as Hamas’s “propaganda arm” in the United States.

Reuters contributed to this report.