ICE Agents Abduct Tufts Ph.D. Student in Escalating Crackdown on Anti-Genocide Campus Protests

Tufts University’s president said the school had no prior notice of her arrest and that government officials said Ozturk’s student visa had been revoked. Last March, Ozturk co-wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticizing the Tufts administration’s response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus which were calling for divestment from Israel. In a statement, Ozturk’s lawyer says she successfully filed a petition to block her client’s removal from Massachusetts, though ICE records indicate Ozturk was transferred to an immigration prison in Louisiana. Her lawyer, who as of yesterday evening had not spoken to her client, called the situation “incredibly bizarre and concerning.”

Over a thousand protesters poured into Powder House Square near the Tufts campus Wednesday. This is Lea Kayali of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Lea Kayali: “We had hundreds of Bostonians coming out here today because they are angered about what happens when one of our community members was taken by armed agents of the state, who kidnapped her from outside of her home. People are here to stand up for the movement that she was punished for supporting, the movement for a free Palestine and to end the genocide in Gaza. And they’re also here to continue to support our immigrant neighbors, who have been getting picked up by ICE ever since, you know, not just Trump came into office, but Biden before him and every administration. So we are out here to continue to demand a free Palestine, to demand ICE out of our communities and to fight for collective liberation.”