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Öztürk, a Ph.D. student at Tufts University, penned a lengthy account of her detainment by ICE in Vanity Fair this week.
Rümeysa Öztürk spent more than six weeks in an ICE detention center in Louisiana. She arrived back in Massachusetts in May. Matthew J. Lee/Boston Globe
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In March, the realities of immigration enforcement under the new Trump administration became apparent to many in Massachusetts when Tufts Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk was swarmed by masked agents and sent to a detention center in Louisiana.
Öztürk is a Turkish national and Fulbright scholar who specializes in children’s media. Known on campus as a kind and introverted academic, Öztürk’s sudden detainment came as a surprise to her and those who know her. Her student visa was revoked, without her knowledge, and she was allegedly targeted because of a pro-Palestine op-ed she helped co-author in the Tufts student newspaper.
Outrage quickly spread, and Öztürk was thrust into the national media spotlight as she arrived at a for-profit ICE detention center for immigrants at risk of deportation.
After more than six weeks, a judge ordered her to be released, and Öztürk made her way back to Massachusetts. She is returning to her studies at Tufts, even as the deportation proceedings against her continue in immigration court.
Öztürk gave relatively brief remarks to the media upon her release, but a new Vanity Fair piece published this week provides the most detailed look yet at what Öztürk experienced. In the piece, which Öztürk wrote, she describes both the harrowing circumstances of her time in Louisiana and the beauty that she found in meeting fellow detainees.
Here are three takeaways.
How the arrest unfolded
Those that followed the situation likely saw video online of Öztürk’s arrest, which occurred as she left her Somerville apartment to go break Ramadan fast with friends. Öztürk details how the day played out from her perspective in the Vanity Fair piece.
She spent that Tuesday in March working on her dissertation proposal, growing “exhausted and hungry.” On her way to the Tufts interfaith center, plainclothes agents whisked her into an unmarked vehicle.
“I was thrust into a nightmare,” she wrote.
She did not immediately know who had taken her or why. Frantic thoughts raced through Öztürk’s mind as she was shuttled from one location to another. What would her mother, who Öztürk was on the phone with when she was arrested, think? Why didn’t she call her grandparents and friends earlier that day? Would a library book she rented be returned? She began her “final prayers,” telling God that she had tried her best every day.
Next came a DNA test in Vermont, a severe asthma attack in Georgia, and a “cramped, cagelike” bus. About 24 hours after being arrested, Öztürk arrived at the detention center.