[[link removed]]

THOUSANDS PROTEST ICE ABDUCTION OF TUFTS STUDENT AS TRUMP ATTACKS AT
UNIVERSITIES INTENSIFY  
[[link removed]]


 

Julia Conley
March 27, 2025
Common Dreams [[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The targeting of foreign students at Columbia, Tufts, Georgetown,
and other universities has led to outcry among academics, particularly
as the ICE abductions have taken place alongside threats from the
Trump administration to pull funding... _

Demonstration yesterday of more than 2000 at Powder House Park in
Somerville, Massachusetts, protesting the abduction of Tufts graduate
student Rumeysa Ozturk by un-identified men in un-marked black cars.,
Photo credit: Jesse Costa/WBUR

 

As reports surfaced Wednesday that Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts
University Ph.D. student who was abducted by immigration agents off a
street in Somerville, Massachusetts, had been taken
[[link removed]] to
a detention center in Louisiana, thousands of people assembled in the
Boston-area city to demand Ozturk's release.

Ozturk was transferred to the South Louisiana Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) processing center despite a court order barring
immigration officials from moving her out-of-state without prior
notice, and her lawyers shared
[[link removed]] a
statement at Powder House Park saying they hadn't been notified about
the Turkish student's exact whereabouts. They also said her F-1
student visa had been terminated.

Organizers wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf, said
[[link removed]] Ozturk
is the victim of "state-sanctioned political kidnapping"—targeted by
ICE and the Trump administration for co-authoring an op-ed
[[link removed]] that
criticized Tufts administrators for their "inadequate and dismissive"
response to a student demand that the university divest from companies
with ties to Israel. [[link removed]]

Ozturk co-wrote the letter last March, weeks before students at
Columbia University led a nationwide campus protest movement against
the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza
[[link removed]], which at the time had killed
[[link removed]] more
than 30,000 Palestinians—the majority of whom were civilians despite
repeated claims by the U.S. and Israel that the operation was
targeting Hamas.

Since then, the Gaza death toll has surged past 50,000, and the Trump
administration has cracked down on international students and
organizers who participated in anti-Israel protests.

"She was abducted by armed agents of the state because she dared take
a stand against genocide," said Lea Kayali of the Palestinian Youth
Movement at the rally in Somerville. "And even though she may not
consider herself an activist, she has more courage in the hand she
wrote that article with than all of [President Donald] Trump's cronies
combined."

As organizers noted that 370 people have been arrested in the Boston
area by ICE in the last week—with officials calling some
"collateral" in Trump's mass deportation campaign—demonstrators
chanted, "Free Rumeysa, free them all!" and, "Come for one, face us
all!"

Sen. Elizabeth Warren
[[link removed]] (D-Mass.) called
[[link removed]] Ozturk's
detention "the latest in an alarming pattern to stifle civil
liberties."

"The Trump administration is targeting students with legal status and
ripping people out of their communities without due process," said
Warren. "This is an attack on our Constitution and basic
freedoms—and we will push back."

Organizers urged attendees to focus on "community building," not just
rallies, in response to ICE's repeated abductions.

"I don't need you to come to any more rallies. I need you to know your
neighbors," said Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim
Justice League. "There is no more time for these rallies and these
marches where you say these things and you go home and you wait for
another social media post to tell you to come here. You have to get
organized."

Later Wednesday evening, _AL.com_reported
[[link removed]] that
ICE's hunt for international students had reached the University of
Alabama (UA). As the student-run newspaper, _The Crimson
White_, reported
[[link removed]],
Iranian mechanical engineering doctoral student Alireza Doroudi was
arrested early Tuesday morning by ICE agents. He was issued an F-1
student visa in January 2023 but had it revoked six months after he
arrived in the U.S.

"After receiving the revocation notice, Alireza immediately contacted
ISSS [International Student and Scholar Service] at University of
Alabama," read a message sent in a group chat including Iranian
students, according to _The Crimson White_. "ISSS replied with
confidence, stating that his case was not unusual or problematic and
that he could remain in the U.S. legally as long as he maintained his
student status."

The University of Alabama Democrats said in response to Doroudi's
abduction and detention in an undisclosed location, "Our fears have
come to pass."

"Donald Trump [[link removed]], [border
czar] Tom Homan, and ICE have struck a cold, vicious dagger through
the heart of UA's international community," the group said
[[link removed]].
"As far as we know right now, ICE is yet to provide any justification
for their actions, so we are not sure if this persecution is
politically motivated, as has been seen in other universities around
the country."

The targeting of foreign students
[[link removed]] at
Columbia, Tufts, Georgetown, and other universities in recent weeks
has led to outcry among academics, particularly as the ICE abductions
have taken place alongside threats
[[link removed]] from the
Trump administration to pull funding from schools for not sufficiently
cracking down on alleged antisemitism on campus—which the White
House has conflated with calls for Palestinian liberation and
opposition to Israel's U.S.-backed attacks.

More than 600 members of the Harvard University faculty signed
[[link removed]] a
letter to the school's governing board Wednesday warning that "ongoing
attacks on American universities threaten bedrock principles of a
democratic society, including rights of free expression, association,
and inquiry." The faculty called on administrators to defy any orders
that threaten academic freedom.

Nearly 1,400 academics have also called
[[link removed]] for
a boycott of Columbia over its refusal to defend and protect students
against Trump's attacks on pro-Palestinian protesters.

"We are appalled that Columbia's leadership has colluded with the
authoritarian suppression of its students by fully capitulating to the
conditions imposed by the Trump administration for the release of $400
million in grants withdrawn on March 7, and that it did so against the
warning issued by constitutional law scholars that this course of
action 'creates a dangerous precedent for every recipient of federal
financial assistance,'" reads a letter from supporters of the academic
boycott.

Former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil
[[link removed]] remains
in detention in Louisiana after being abducted by plainclothes
immigration agents earlier this month for leading negotiations with
Columbia regarding divestment from Israel, while Ph.D.
candidate Ranjani Srinivasan
[[link removed]] fled the
country after her visa was revoked and Columbia unenrolled her.
Columbia also expelled Grant Miner, a Jewish student and labor leader
who occupied a campus building last spring, and revoked
[[link removed]] degrees from
some student protesters.

"Universities cannot pretend to hold higher education sacred while
repressing students and faculty, undermining free speech and academic
freedom, and prohibiting dissent," reads the letter. "Every such act
of craven suppression and compliance only further undermines the
university and emboldens the reactionary forces intent on destroying
it."

_[JULIA CONLEY is a staff writer for Common Dreams.]_

_Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to
republish and share widely._

* Rumeysa Ozturk
[[link removed]]
* Tufts University
[[link removed]]
* ICE
[[link removed]]
* Immigrants
[[link removed]]
* Palestine solidarity
[[link removed]]
* foreign students
[[link removed]]
* McCarthyism
[[link removed]]
* Protest
[[link removed]]
* Free Speech
[[link removed]]
* First Amendment
[[link removed]]
* Student visa
[[link removed]]
* Mahmoud Khalil
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Oct. 7
[[link removed]]
* anti-Semitism
[[link removed]]
* Trump 2.0
[[link removed]]
* zionism
[[link removed]]
* Canary Mission
[[link removed]]
* DHS
[[link removed]]
* Israeli security
[[link removed]]
* Ministry of Strategic Affairs
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]