“Justice is something that people ignore until it happens in the neighborhood. … No one thought this would happen in a school in Massachusetts.”
Somerville, Mass. – More than 1000 people gathered for an emergency rally at Nathan Tufts Park in Powder House Square near Tufts University yesterday. Together, they demanded the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts PhD student and Turkish national in the US on a student visa, who was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Tuesday.
Recently doxxed on Canary Mission, a pro-Israel blacklist website that targets pro-Palestinian activists, the 30-year-old Ozturk was sent to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, La. with her captors possibly ignoring a federal judge’s decision to detain her in the Bay State.
According to an Associated Press report earlier today, a “senior DHS spokesperson confirmed Ozturk’s detention and the termination of her visa” in a brief statement, “DHS and (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege, not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is common sense security.”
DHS has not yet stated what specific actions led to the arrest, which people in the area said came after several days of agents in unmarked vehicles surveilling Ozturk’s block.
Video from the scene of her capture shows Ozturk screaming as agents in plainclothes and masks approached her. One agent, dressed in a hoodie, removed her backpack and grabbed her by the wrists. Ozturk was then placed in an unmarked SUV with her hands behind her back, making her the latest student to be snatched off the street by ICE since the Trump administration’s promise to crack down on pro-Palestinian activists. The arrest spurred people from the Tufts campus and beyond to respond.
“It’s time to get trained and get organized,” one person yelled into a microphone at the Wednesday event. “This whole system has to go!”
Speaking to the crowd, organizers focused on individual rights and further advocacy. James Walkingstick, a Mexican-American museum worker who attended the rally, came to show his support “not for the injustices we’re seeing today, but to protect our freedoms for the future.” “I come from a long line of immigrants,” he said. “My family is indigenous, and we’ve been here for generations and generations, so I’m inclined to want to protect our people.”
Another speaker informed activists about their rights, urging them to “shut the fuck up” when approached by law enforcement and urged protestors to visit lucemass.org, a website recently launched by a “coalition of immigrant-led, grassroots organizations” that asks people to call a hotline to report when they see ICE in their communities.
Antuan Castro Del Rio, a naturalized citizen and activist carrying a large Palestinian flag, said he wanted to establish a presence due to Ozturk’s arrest: “Justice is something that people ignore until it happens in the neighborhood. … No one thought this would happen in a school in Massachusetts.”
Castro Del Rio said it is important to demand justice for immigrants, and to denounce injustices committed by the Trump administration and ICE. “This is an infringement on the civil liberties of people,” he added. “Infringing on the civil liberties of anyone is infringing on the civil liberties of every single person.”
Castro Del Rio has been in the US for 23 years and was naturalized in 2013. He said while he doesn’t have fears about his citizenship status, he does fear for his community. “I don’t have fears for my citizenship, but … I do have fears for activists who become really active.”
Nearby, a staff member from MIT arrived with a group of about 50 people including other university workers, faculty, and grad students. He said they showed up because of the assault on students in the Boston area. “What we see happening at Tufts,” said the staffer, who chose to remain anonymous due to fears of employer retaliation. “That could happen at MIT tomorrow or the next day.”
The MIT staff member added that faculty has mostly been complacent and afraid to speak out. Part of that fear stems from what happened to Michel DeGraff, an MIT professor, who was prohibited from teaching a proposed course about the Israel-Palestine conflict in November. At the rally, the MIT employee said it hasn’t been safe for students or members of the public to gather on their campus.
“We’ve witnessed police brutality brought against students at MIT,” he said. “They allow people to come in and photograph them and monitor them that are reporting to extremist organizations targeting them. But at the same time, that’s not going to stop anybody.”
Madhura Sengupta, a counselor who works with college students in the Boston area, said that she was distraught by the actions of the federal government in Somerville this week. “I think … people feeling like, ‘There’s nothing I can do about,’ is something that the government and the systems in power want,” she said. “I don’t feel comfortable just sitting back and allowing things to happen without at least showing up.”
As the sun set, volunteers handed out dates to those breaking their Ramadan fast. Cheers, rage, and confusion filled the air. Looking around, Sengupta said that people are nervous and scared: “A lot of my students are undocumented or just struggling to survive in this society. … I feel like it just matters to me to try to show up for them and support them any way I can.”
Organizers planned another rally for tonight, at Somerville City Hall at 6 p.m. They expect an even larger presence than on Wednesday.
This article was produced for HorizonMass, the independent, student-driven, news outlet of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, and is syndicated by BINJ’s MassWire news service.
