A doctoral student who was targeted for deportation under President Donald Trump has chosen to return to her native Turkiye, citing the “state-imposed violence and hostility” she faced in the United States. Rumeysa Ozturk made the announcement through the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Friday, after a nearly yearlong legal battle with the Trump administration. Ozturk’s case was one of the most high-profile instances of the Trump administration seeking to punish foreign students for their pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Surveillance video of Ozturk’s arrest went viral in late March 2025, showing six plain-clothed immigration officers suddenly surrounding her on the street outside her Massachusetts apartment, as she left to break her Ramadan fast. The video captures a first officer grabbing the then-30-year-old Ozturk by the hands, prompting her to cry out. As she is handcuffed, a concerned passerby questions the officers, who wear hoodies, sunglasses and masks: “How do I know this is the police?” Ozturk has no criminal record.
She appears to have been targeted for her decision to co-sign an opinion column in her student newspaper, The Tufts Daily, along with three other students. The article called on her university’s president to acknowledge the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and divest from companies with ties to Israel. Afterwards, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused her of having “engaged in activities in support of Hamas”, though there is no evidence to back that assertion.
The Trump administration has cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 as giving it the power to remove legal immigration documents from foreign nationals, if the secretary of state deems them to cause “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”. That breadth of that power, however, continues to be contested in court. Ozturk was part of a first wave of deportations the Trump administration conducted against pro-Palestinian scholars, starting with Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil on March 8, 2025.
Before the deportation push, Trump had signalled that he considered pro-Palestinian activism to be anti-Semitic. He pledged to crack down on the widespread protest movement that erupted on US campuses in the wake of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. On January 29, nine days after being sworn in for a second term, Trump issued an executive order that said he would use “all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account” those he considered anti-Semitic.
Legal experts, however, have noted that protests and writing op-eds are protected speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Ozturk’s arrest ultimately prompted a legal odyssey that has continued through this week. Shortly after being arrested on March 25, 2025, Ozturk was transported to New Hampshire and then to Vermont, where she spent the night in a detention centre run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
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