On Tuesday, US authorities detained and revoked the scholar visa of Tufts College pupil, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish nationwide who had voiced her assist for Palestinians affected by the Gaza battle.
Ozturk’s arrest is the newest occasion of President Donald Trump’s administration performing towards worldwide school college students over their assist for Palestinians through the Gaza solidarity encampments that erupted across university campuses final yr. College students who protested for Palestine are having their authorized visas and residence standing revoked and are being arrested and detained.
Right here is extra in regards to the US college college students who’ve been detained to date:
Why does Trump need to deport US college students?
The Trump administration alleges that the scholars who participated in pro-Palestine protests unfold anti-Semitism and pro-Hamas sentiment on campus — a declare college students, attorneys and activists have all rebutted. Jewish activists and teams have been on the forefront of most of the most distinguished protests within the US towards the Gaza battle.
On January 29, Trump signed an government order titled “Further Measures to Fight Anti-Semitism”, by which he ordered the pinnacle of every government division or company to submit a report inside 60 days on all prison and civil authorities and actions out there for combating anti-Semitism.
The White Home revealed a reality sheet a day after this order. Within the reality sheet, Trump said: “To all of the resident aliens who joined within the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on discover: come 2025, we’ll discover you, and we’ll deport you. I may also rapidly cancel the scholar visas of all Hamas sympathizers on school campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like by no means earlier than.”
His administration has since focused a number of worldwide college students and students within the US.
Rumeysa Ozturk
Safety digicam footage from Tuesday night reveals six people in plainclothes taking Ozturk into custody close to her house in Somerville, Massachusetts. A few of these officers have been partially masking their faces. Ozturk had headed out alone to satisfy her buddies for Iftar, the night meal to interrupt her Ramadan quick.
The 30-year-old is a Turkish nationwide and a Fulbright Scholar in Tufts’ doctoral programme for Youngster Research and Human Improvement. She has been within the US on a sound pupil visa.
On March 26, 2024, Ozturk co-wrote an opinion piece for her college’s pupil information web site, the Tufts Day by day, with 4 different college students. On this piece, the authors criticised the institute’s President Sunil Kumar, who despatched an e mail dismissing resolutions handed by the Tufts Group Union Senate, which referred to as for the college to divest from firms linked to Israel and “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.
Ozturk’s lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, filed a petition in Boston federal court docket late on Tuesday, arguing that Ozturk had been unlawfully detained. Because of this, US District Choose Indira Talwani ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to not transfer Ozturk out of Massachusetts with out 48 hours discover.
Regardless of this, Ozturk was moved to Louisiana by Wednesday evening, in accordance with her lawyer.
US Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an X put up on Wednesday: “DHS + ICE investigations discovered Ozturk engaged in actions in assist of Hamas, a overseas terrorist group that relishes the killing of People.” McLaughlin didn’t specify what these actions have been.
“A visa is a privilege not a proper. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill People is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. That is commonsense safety,” McLaughlin wrote.
“We’re unaware of her whereabouts and haven’t been capable of contact her. No costs have been filed towards Rumeysa so far that we’re conscious of,” Khanbabai stated in a press release.
Tufts College President Sunil Kumar stated in a written assertion that the college was not knowledgeable earlier than this arrest. “From what now we have been instructed subsequently, the scholar’s visa standing has been terminated, and we search to verify whether or not that info is true,” Kumar stated.
The video of Ozturk’s arrest was captured on 32-year-old software program engineer Michael Mathis’s safety digicam. “It regarded like a kidnapping,” he stated, in accordance with a report by AP. “They method her and begin grabbing her with their faces coated. They’re masking their faces. They’re in unmarked automobiles.”
On Wednesday, a whole lot of individuals gathered in Somerville to protest the arrest of Ozturk, demanding her launch.
Standing with hundreds of Somerville residents to denounce the sickening, illegal abduction of Tufts graduate pupil Rumeysa Ozturk by masked federal brokers final evening. We have to deliver Rumeysa house and arrange a coordinated protection of our immigrant neighbors and our rights. pic.twitter.com/LSGLLlraIi
— Mike Connolly (@MikeConnollyMA) March 27, 2025
Mahmoud Khalil
On March 8, ICE brokers arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a current Columbia College graduate who was the lead negotiator for Columbia College Apartheid Divest (CUAD) through the campus protests final yr. He was taken from his university-owned New York Metropolis house whereas his spouse, Noor Abdalla, who’s eight months pregnant, recorded the arrest on her cellphone. This marked the primary publicly identified pupil deportation effort of its form underneath the Trump administration.
McLaughlin alleged Khalil “led actions aligned to Hamas, a chosen terrorist group,” however no proof for this was offered. Abdalla stated that the brokers didn’t present a warrant whereas making the arrest. Khalil was transferred to an ICE processing facility in Jena, Louisiana.
On the time of arrest, Khalil was a everlasting resident with a inexperienced card. When the ICE brokers have been instructed that Khalil had a inexperienced card, they stated that this is able to be revoked. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted the hyperlink to a information article about Khalil’s arrest, captioning it “We might be revoking the visas and/or inexperienced playing cards of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported.”
On March 10, Trump posted on his Reality Social platform: “Following my beforehand signed Govt Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical International Professional-Hamas Pupil on the campus of Columbia College.” Trump added that Khalil’s arrest was the primary of many. “We are going to discover, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our nation — by no means to return once more,” Trump wrote, with out providing any proof to again his accusations towards Khalil.
Khalil, 30, was an Algerian citizen born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. He arrived at Columbia in January 2023 to pursue his Grasp’s diploma in public administration. Khalil was amongst a small group of scholars who organised the primary campus protest on October 12, 2024, 5 days after Israel’s battle on Gaza broke out.
Amid the protests, Khalil was briefly suspended by Columbia, however reinstated after the college discovered no grounds for suspension. On the time, Khalil instructed the BBC that whereas he was a lead negotiator, he didn’t take part within the encampments, fearing he would lose his F-1 pupil visa.
It’s unclear when he obtained his inexperienced card, however his spouse, Abdalla, is a US citizen.
“The federal government’s illegal coverage of concentrating on noncitizens for arrest and elimination primarily based on protected speech is … viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Modification,” Khalil’s attorneys, led by Amy Belsher, wrote in a court docket submitting on March 13.
Badar Khan Suri
Indian nationwide Badar Khan Suri was arrested on the night of March 17 at his house in northern Virginia. Suri is a postdoctoral fellow on the Alwaleed Bin Talal Heart for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown College. He had been in Virginia for 3 years and held a sound US pupil visa on the time of arrest.
Georgetown College stated in a written assertion: “We aren’t conscious of [Suri] participating in any criminal activity, and now we have not obtained a purpose for his detention.”
McLaughlin attributed Suri’s arrest to his “spreading Hamas propaganda and selling antisemitism”. She wrote on X: “Suri has shut connections to a identified or suspected terrorist, who’s a senior advisor to Hamas.”
Suri’s spouse, Mapheze Saleh, is an American citizen, she confirmed to Al Jazeera. In a put up on X on February 13, the Israeli embassy within the US stated that Saleh was the daughter of a senior Hamas adviser. Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to assassinated Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed to The New York Occasions that he’s Suri’s father-in-law.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration has but to make public any proof that Suri had unfold Hamas propaganda or promoted anti-Semitism.
On March 20, Choose Patricia Tolliver Giles of the Japanese District of Virginia Court docket halted Suri’s deportation. In line with the ICE web site, Suri is at present being held within the Prairieland Detention Heart in Alvarado, Texas.
Yunseo Chung
Yunseo Chung, 21, is a Korean-American Columbia pupil and everlasting resident of the US and has lived within the US since she was seven. Chung was one of many several students arrested for taking part in a pro-Palestine protest on March 5 this yr at Barnard Faculty, a Columbia-affiliated undergraduate school.
On Monday, she sued the Trump administration within the US District Court docket for the Southern District of New York to keep away from being deported.
Her authorized workforce was knowledgeable early this month that her everlasting residence was being revoked, in accordance with the court docket submitting. The lawsuit says that immigration authorities issued an administrative arrest warrant for Chung on March 8.
On Tuesday, US District Choose Naomi Reice Buchwald temporarily halted her deportation. “As of in the present day, Yunseo Chung not has to worry and reside in worry of ICE coming to her doorstep and abducting her within the evening,” Chung’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem stated after the ruling.
Momodou Taal
Momodou Taal is a doctoral candidate in Africana Research at Cornell College. He’s a twin citizen of the UK and The Gambia. He participated in pro-Palestine protests final yr, the place he referred to as on Cornell to divest from firms that promote weapons to Israel. Taal was suspended from Cornell twice final yr for his participation in protest actions and encampment.
Taal instructed Al Jazeera that he filed a lawsuit on March 8 alongside two different plaintiffs — a doctoral candidate and Cornell professor who’re each US residents — after Khalil was arrested, towards two Trump government orders, together with the one centered on college campuses.
On the morning of March 19, a day after a federal choose scheduled a listening to for Taal’s lawsuit, Taal posted a written assertion on X that “unidentified legislation enforcement” got here to his house in Ithaca, New York. He added that later within the day, Cornell college students noticed further legislation enforcement vehicles positioned at completely different spots close to his residence, together with on campus.
Citing the instance of Ozturk’s arrest, Taal stated that there appears to be an rising sample, “You’re surveilled for just a few days after which they pounce basically to abduct you and kidnap you sooner or later.”
Taal stated his visa was revoked on March 14.
Alireza Doroudi
Alireza Doroudi, a mechanical engineering doctoral pupil on the College of Alabama, was detained by ICE brokers early on Tuesday, the college’s pupil information web site, The Crimson White, reported. Whereas the ICE web site says that an Iranian particular person named Alireza Doroudi is in ICE custody, it doesn’t specify the place he’s being detained.
Doroudi was from Iran and obtained an F-1 pupil visa from the US embassy in Oman in January 2023. His visa was revoked six months after his arrival within the US, The Crimson White reported, citing a gaggle chat that included Iranian college students. It’s unclear whether or not he was arrested for overstaying a visa.
College spokesperson Alex Home stated that, whereas worldwide college students are valued members of the campus neighborhood, the college “has and can proceed to observe all immigration legal guidelines and cooperate with federal authorities.”
Ranjani Srinivasan
Ranjani Srinivasan, 37, had her pupil visa revoked by the US Division of State on the evening of March 5. She discovered about this by an e mail from the US consulate in Chennai, the southern Indian state the place she is initially from. She had been a PhD candidate in city planning at Columbia College for 5 years and held a sound visa till 2029.
On March 7, people claiming to be immigration brokers got here knocking on Srinivasan’s college residential housing flat that she had lived in since 2021. The people stated that they deliberate to place Srinivasan by proceedings to take away her from the US, earlier than ultimately leaving.
After this, Srinivasan left her flat for a location she didn’t disclose in communication with Al Jazeera. A day after this, Khalil was arrested. “That’s after I realised I’ve no rights on this system in any respect. It was solely a matter of time earlier than they caught maintain of me,” Srinivasan instructed Al Jazeera. “What really unsettled me was that Columbia already knew ICE was working on campus – but appeared bored with intervening and even seemed to be colluding with them earlier than Mahmoud disappeared.”
On March 9, Columbia unenrolled Srinivasan as a pupil. By March 11, Srinivasan flew out of New York to Canada on a customer visa to stick with her household and buddies. Her attorneys knowledgeable ICE that Srinivasan had departed from the US.
On March 14, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted a video on her X account exhibiting safety digicam footage of Srinivasan at New York’s LaGuardia airport, elated about “one of many Columbia College terrorist sympathizers” leaving on their very own.
Srinivasan was surprised on the accusation. “If supporting the concept of human rights or ending a genocide is equated with supporting Hamas, then anybody in proximity to me – with out me having finished something – can simply be picked up and made an instance of,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
