The US government had no evidence that Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk had engaged in “antisemitic activities” or made public comments in support of US-designated terror organizations before she was detained by ICE agents, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The report said that days before Ozturk’s arrest, the State Department determined that Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn’t have the authority to revoke her student visa under an authority the administration is attempting to use to deport critics of Israel.
Ozturk, a PhD student, was targeted for co-authoring an op-ed last year that called for Tufts University to divest from Israel and “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
The Post report said that the Department of Homeland Security had recommended to the State Department that Ozturk’s visa be revoked under an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that allows deportation of someone if the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds to believe” their presence would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The DHS said that Ozturk had engaged in “anti-Israel activism” and referred to the op-ed she co-authored. Ozturk was first targeted by pro-Israel groups, including the Canary Mission, which doxxes students and professors who are critical of Israel. The Canary Mission’s page on Ozturk lists only the op-ed as an example of her “anti-Israel activism.”
The State Department found there was not sufficient evidence to deport Ozturk under the provision DHS recommended. Instead, the State Department said she could be deported using another authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows for the revocation of a visa at the secretary of state’s discretion, according to the Post.
Ozturk was detained in Massachusetts on March 25 and is now being held in an ICE facility in Louisiana. In a declaration obtained by NBC News on Sunday, Ozturk said she was being held in “inhumane” and “unsafe” conditions and that her asthma was not being properly treated.
Footage of Ozturk being arrested by masked federal agents provoked widespread condemnation of the Trump administration’s crackdown on speech critical of Israel. Ozturk said in the declaration that she was terrified during the arrest and thought the agents were “private individuals” who might kill her.
