Rubio defends arrest of Tufts student

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Thursday that the federal government had revoked the visa of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts graduate student who was detained by ICE agents in Somerville earlier this week. The US has revoked more than 300 visas, Rubio told reporters at a press conference in Guyana. 

Rubio defended Ozturk’s detention and the termination of her visa. He argued that US officials have a responsibility to take those actions against people that come into the country to cause chaos and commit crimes like vandalism on university campuses. 

Ozturk, a Turkish national, co-authored an op-ed that appeared in The Tufts Daily last March where she identified as a “graduate student for Palestine.” In that piece, she called on Tufts officials to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and to divest from Israel. 

The Tufts campus in Medford saw significant protest activity last spring, as students set up an encampment to draw attention to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the school’s purported connections to Israel. But Ozturk is not known as an outspoken protest leader, and officials have not produced evidence that she participated in the disruptive behavior Rubio described. 

State Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a post on X that authorities “found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”

“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student and you tell us that the reason you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want 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,” Rubio said. 

Rubio continued, insinuating that Ozturk may have purposefully deceived US officials when applying for her visa in the first place. 

“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa,” he said. 

Ozturk is a Fulbright Scholar who was pursuing her PhD in the Tufts Child Study and Human Development department. She specializes in children’s media content and earned her master’s degree from the Teachers College at Columbia University before coming to Tufts, according to her LinkedIn.

Masked, plainclothes agents ambushed her on Tuesday evening as she was headed to break her Ramadan fast with friends. Video of the incident circulated widely online. 

Attorney General Andrea Campbell called the footage “disturbing,” and outrage was widespread among Democratic politicians and locals. Thousands of people attended a rally in support of Ozturk Wednesday evening. 

The incident follows a pattern that began with the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and protest leader at Columbia. Just like Ozturk, he was suddenly arrested and transported to a detention center in Louisiana after his visa was revoked.

Another international Columbia student, Yunseo Chung, sued the government to prevent her deportation over involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. A similar situation is playing out in the case of Cornell University student Momodou Taal. 

Rubio was asked about the wider practice of revoking visas. 

“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio said. “At some point I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them.”