#rumeysa-ozturk — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #rumeysa-ozturk, aggregated by home.social.
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Two immigration judges who ruled against the Trump administration in the deportation cases of pro-Palestinian university students have been fired by the Department of Justice.
The New York Times reported over the weekend that the justice department had terminated six judges,
including Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, who oversaw deportation proceedings against Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi,
two students who were arrested last year as part of Trump’s campaign against the Gaza protest movement.In an interview with the Guardian, Patel said she did not view her dismissal as “directly retaliatory” for any one case.
She said it fit within a broader pattern of the administration dismissing judges near the end of their probationary term,
particularly those who have experience representing immigrants in court.“I think there’s a broader agenda of trying to reshape the immigration bench to be more reflective of the political agenda of the administration,” Patel said.
The Biden administration appointed both Patel and Froes to the bench in May 2024, and both had previously worked in immigration defense.
A recent NPR analysis found that the Trump administration appears to be targeting immigration judges who previously represented immigrants -
For anyone who could use a spot of good news--outside of our region you might not have heard of it.
Dr. #RumeysaOzturk has completed her PhD.
"I would like to be called Dr. Öztürk, not Miss Öztürk, from now on.”
Yes, Dr. sister!
https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/02/20/ozturk-phd-tufts-ice-immigration
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Mahsa Khanbabai, a lawyer for #RumeysaOzturk, said that the decision was a “powerful affirmation of fairness & the rule of #law.”
“We hope this decision serves as a reminder that #immigration enforcement must always be guided by #justice,” she said in an email, adding, “If the Sec. of State can on a whim decide to revoke a person’s visa what does that say about impartiality, the rule of law, & transparency?”
#Constitution #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #FreePress #Trump #Rubio #authoritarianism
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An #immigration judge has found there were no grounds to deport a Turkish graduate student whose arrest by masked agents last year was an early salvo in the #Trump admin’s crackdown on migrants.
The decision by the judge, Roopal Patel, came last month & was disclosed in federal court by lawyers for the student, #RumeysaOzturk, this week. It effectively means that the govt has no legal justification to deport Ozturk, a grad student at Tufts.
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#Immigration Judge Says #Trump Admin Cannot Deport #Tufts Student
The student, #RumeysaOzturk, who is from Turkey, was detained by immigration agents last year after she co-wrote a pro-Palestinian opinion article for her student newspaper.
#law #Constitution #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #FreePress #democracy #authoritarianism
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/us/immigration-judge-tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share -
Young added, “These cabinet secretaries have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the #Constitution.”
Young’s comments came as he prepares to issue what he described as a steep #sanction against the #Trump admin for seeking to “chill” the #FreeSpeech of pro-#Palestinian #activists targeted for arrest & removal weeks after Trump took office—including #Columbia University’s #MahmoudKhalil & #MohsenMadhawi, as well as #Tufts PhD student #RumeysaOzturk & #Georgetown academic #BadarKhanSuri.
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#ICE Hires Immigrant #BountyHunters From #PrivatePrison Company #GEOGroup
#BIIncorporated, a subsidiary of for-profit prison company GEO Group, will help ICE pinpoint the locations of #immigrants.
by Sam Biddle, December 19 2025
Excerpt: "The deal illustrates a strategy of vertical integration within GEO Group, which has found a growing line of business operating for-profit immigration detention centers under the second #Trump administration. In this case, the corporation stands to be paid by the federal government to both find immigrants and then to imprison them.
"Shares of GEO Group, which donated to both Trump’s reelection campaign and his inaugural fund, spiked following his 2024 victory. Trump’s return to office has proven fortuitous for GEO Group: The president’s '#BigBeautifulBill' earmarked $45 billion for jailing immigrants. 'This is a unique moment in our company’s history,' GEO Group CEO J. David Donahue told investors in May, 'and we believe we are well-positioned to meet this unprecedented opportunity.'
"GEO Group has faced decades of criticism over alleged mismanagement of its facilities and claims of rampant abuse of inmates. In August, The Intercept reported the suicide of a Chinese immigrant held at a GEO Group-operated prison in Pennsylvania. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal complaint over the facility in July, criticizing 'horrific conditions' at the prison, including repeated instances of medical neglect.
"In 2023, GEO Group was hit by a class-action lawsuit alleging the 'months-long poisoning' from a chemical disinfectant of more than 1,300 inmates at a California immigration detention center. In May, Tufts University student #RümeysaÖztürk, jailed for her criticism of the Israeli #genocide in #Gaza, alleged her GEO Group-managed jail delayed treatment while she experienced an asthma attack."
Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/12/19/ice-bounty-hunters-location-surveillance-geo-group/Archived version:
https://archive.ph/xG60J#USPol #HumanRightsAbuses #ICESucks #Authoritarianism #Grifters #ForProfitPrisons #ShadyDeals
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How Somerville Became the First US City to Vote to Divest From Israeli Apartheid
When voters across the country filed into polling stations on November 4, making choices that could shape their communities over coming years, residents of Somerville, Massachusetts, also had the opportunity to vote on a question of international significance: whether their city should boycott and divest from companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and genocide in Gaza.
This post has been syndicated from Truthout, where it was published under this address.
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Reagan-Appointed Judge Torches Trump Admin’s Bullshit Chilling Effects Campaign Against Pro-Palestinian Speech
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New 'Thought Policing' Bill May Let #Rubio Strip #Passports from #USCitizens Over Political Speech | Common Dreams
Stephen Prager
Sep 13, 2025"#FreeSpeech advocates are sounding the alarm about a bill in the US House of Representatives that they fear could allow Secretary of State #MarcoRubio to strip US citizens of their passports based purely on political speech.
"The bill, introduced by Rep. #BrianMast (R-Fla.), will come up for a hearing on Wednesday. According to The Intercept:
:Mast’s new bill claims to target a narrow set of people. One section grants the secretary of state the power to revoke or refuse to issue passports for people who have been convicted—or merely charged—of material support for terrorism...
"The other section sidesteps the legal process entirely. Rather, the secretary of state would be able to deny passports to people whom they determine 'has knowingly aided, assisted, abetted, or otherwise provided material support to an organization the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.'
"Rubio has previously boasted of stripping the visas and green cards from several immigrants based purely on their peaceful expression of #ProPalestine views, describing them as '#Hamas supporters.'
"These include Columbia protest leader #MahmoudKhalil, who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (#ICE) after Rubio voided his green card; and #RumeysaOzturk, the Tufts student whose visa Rubio revoked after she co-wrote an op-ed calling for her school to divest from #Israel.
"Mast—a former soldier for the #IsraelDefenseForces who once stated that babies were 'not innocent Palestinian civilians' — has previously called for 'kicking terrorist sympathizers out of our country,' speaking about the Trump administration’s attempts to deport Khalil, who was never convicted or even charged with support for a terrorist group.
"Critics have argued that the bill has little reason to exist other than to allow the Secretary of State to unilaterally strip passports from people without them actually having been convicted of a crime."
Read more:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/rubio-thought-policing-bill#ThoughtPolice #Orwellian #USPol #CharacteristicsOfFascism #FreeMahmoud #FreeRumeysa #WaterProtectors #FreePalestine #LandDefenders #SilencingDissent #Fasicsm #Authoritarianism
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"The best we can do is:
Be clear-eyed about reality.
Analyze the problems and understand them as fully as possible.
When we see opportunities to push back against fascism, take them.
Refuse to be quiet.
Hope that the accumulated weight of millions of people making good trouble eventually causes the authoritarian attempt to tip over."
#Trump #immigrants #AndryHernandezRomero #MahmoudKhalil #RumeysaOzturk
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"Being loud matters. Andry. Mahmoud Khalil. Rümeysa Öztürk. The Trump administration is doing terrible things to innocent people and we should assume that for every case we hear about there are hundreds (thousands?) that are obscured from us.
But when we see these crimes taking place and we’re loud about it, good things can happen."
~ Jonathan V. Last
#Trump #immigrants #AndryHernandezRomero #MahmoudKhalil #RumeysaOzturk
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Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk opens up for the first time about her shocking arrest and 45 days in a South Louisiana processing facility. She recalls the generous and compassionate women who helped her through this harrowing ordeal.
"On a Tuesday in March, I had spent most of my day working on my dissertation proposal and started to feel exhausted and hungry. It was the holy month of Ramadan, and I was fasting. Once finished, I quickly got ready to attend an iftar dinner, throwing on my hoodie, sweatpants, and a jersey headscarf—definitely not a day for being fancy. I was looking forward to taking a short walk and catching up with friends at the interfaith center, when I was suddenly surrounded and grabbed by a swarm of masked individuals, who handcuffed me and shoved me into an unmarked car.
Suddenly, I was thrust into a nightmare. Thousands of questions crept up in the hours that passed. It felt like an eternity as my shackled body was jostled from one location to another. Who were these people? Had I been a good enough person if today was my final day? I was relieved to have finished filing my taxes, but I couldn’t shake the thought of a book I needed to return to the library. I regretted not calling my grandparents and friends that day. My mom had heard my scream on the phone when they were taking me. She didn’t know where I was, and I could only imagine how many times she tried to reach me from oceans away, or who my father had attempted to contact. As my body shook with fear, I found myself drowning in thoughts. I began my final prayers, communicating with God that I had tried my best every day.
I was shuttled from Somerville to another city in Massachusetts, then to New Hampshire and Vermont, followed by Georgia and Louisiana. I experienced countless changes in agents, cars, planes, and handcuffs. In Vermont, I was required to take a DNA test for the first time. I hadn’t yet been permitted to contact my parents, friends, or lawyer. I asked numerous questions, but I received few answers; those I did get were inconsistent with each other.
Throughout, I was disoriented, hungry, and nauseous. In Georgia, after suffering a severe asthma attack without my primary inhaler and having a hard cry, I was feeling completely hopeless. In Louisiana, I found myself in a cramped, cagelike bus, waiting for hours. I watched as countless people arrived from a nearby plane, all shackled—hands, feet, and waists. Some were taken inside a building, while others were loaded onto a bus, where I was left behind. I asked for water but was given none. I sat with others in uncomfortable seats, all of us feeling the weight of our situations, and me intensely feeling the strain on my body, which was about to collapse.
(. . .)
It wasn’t until late afternoon on March 26 that we arrived at a 'detention center,' roughly 24 hours since I had been grabbed off the street. While waiting to be processed alongside dozens of other women in a stark white cell, I felt utterly exhausted, lying on the hard floor from time to time. As someone who learned English later in life, the lines between prison and detention centers blurred in my mind. I had a lot of questions: Who are the people staying here? How many are there? What are the living conditions like? What kinds of offenses have brought them here? How long have they been here?
The cramped room was filled with women, some lying on the cold floor, others looking scared or simply sad, all in desperate need of food and water. The bathrooms were just curtained stalls. The room itself was frustratingly bright, with hard, uncomfortable benches that added to the tension of the situation. Later in the night, we were finally given some dinner. My request for halal or vegetarian food was rejected.
Still, despite these awful circumstances, I clung to my belief in humanity. I took a moment to collect my thoughts. I then began engaging in conversations with the women around me. Over the 14 hours I spent in processing, I connected with many of them. Through a sometimes-challenging language barrier, we talked—about how we’d gotten there, where we’d been, and what was waiting for us on the inside. I discovered that another woman there also had asthma, as she carried her inhaler. I learned that several women were separated from their children.
I soon learned the color coding used in the detention center. Orange indicated 'low crime,' meaning those individuals were asylum seekers, their 'crime' being the act of legally seeking asylum or crossing the border without authorization. Women kept asking me, 'Did you cross the border?' I answered: 'I hadn’t.' 'I had a ticket.' 'I had F-1 visa one day before.' 'I am a doctoral student.’' The red uniforms denoted more serious offenses. I came to understand that this facility serves as an immigration detention center where asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants—people escaping conflict, war, oppression, and violence—are taken and find themselves stuck for months or years. I was given orange. I wondered which border I had crossed without my knowledge.
Around 6 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, having gone two nights without sleep and little food, I was finally processed in the for-profit ICE prison. My request for a space for my morning prayer was rejected by an intake officer. Instead, I was directed to the medical center for my first evaluation, which primarily consisted of me listing my health issues to the nurse and trying to remember the names of the medications I was taking. I spent hours waiting there under extremely loud TV sounds. Later, when I was directed to where I was to stay in the afternoon, I was bewildered to find 23 other women crowded into a small cell. They greeted me with warmth and smiles, which only added to my confusion. The questions I initially had about who they were and why they were there continued to fade. I opened the plastic bag of 'essentials' that the officers had given us, which contained two to three changes of clothes, flip-flops, a small bottle of shampoo, a comb, one thin blanket and sheet, toothpaste, a cheap toothbrush, and a handbook.
Always the student, I wanted to dive into the handbook, but it was written in Spanish. I asked a few of the other women if they had an English version; they did, and they were eager to help me understand everything. I read the handbook and instructions multiple times, but some parts were confusing.They walked me through the setup of the phone, which felt outdated and challenging to operate. They showed me how to use the old tablets in the room, explained how to set up my account, and guided me through the commissary process—the weekly food ordering system that often failed to deliver—along with a few other limited features. After that, utterly miserable and drained, I turned my attention to the blue metal bunk bed."
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/rumeysa-ozturk-what-i-witnessed-inside-an-ice-womens-prison
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Hey #SomervilleMA: our neighbor #RumeysaOzturk wrote a thing everyone should read.
Vanity Fair version (should you be a subscriber): https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/rumeysa-ozturk-what-i-witnessed-inside-an-ice-womens-prison
Alternative look: https://archive.ph/3fwgg
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“Young, an 84-year-old jurist appointed by Ronald Reagan, said that the manner of #RumeysaOzturk’s arrest seemed unusual to him.
“‘I’m not accustomed to … law enforcement officers without identification, approaching individuals masked and you know, not having a warrant…’”
#law #immigration #StateSponsoredAbduction #Constitution #CivilRights #HumanRights #DueProcess #judiciary #SeparationOfPowers #Trump #AbuseOfPower
https://www.allrisenews.com/p/aaup-rubio-trial -
Josh Friedman’s is covering #RümeysaÖztürk’s hearing in detail, follow along here:
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qrllvid7s54k4hnwtqxwetrf/post/3lpa2dzrouc2l
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Right now Judge Sessions is hearing arguments on whether #ICE gets to impose extra conditions of release on #RümeysaÖztürk, who is already out on #bail.
(Sessions declined to attach ICE conditions at the time of release last week, but said he'd consider a written proposal later).
Yesterday, #Öztürk's attys asked Sessions to reject all of ICE's proposed additional conditions of release, calling them unjustified & unjustifiable.
#immigration #law #student #visa #Trump
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25942332-ozturk-ecf-138-petitioners-opp-to-proposed-conditions/ -
The Guardian: #RümeysaÖztürk, @Tufts student held by #Ice, vows to continue legal action after jail release
#immigration
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/11/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-student-held-by-ice-vows-to-continue-legal-action-after-jail-release -
#Tufts student returns to #Massachusetts after release from immigration custody
from #Reuters
By Nate Raymond
May 10, 202510:12 PM EDT[article contains 5 nice photos :-) ]
** Summary**
* #Öztürk returns home after release from immigration detention center
* Judge in #Vermont grants bail, citing substantial claims her rights were violated
* Ozturk urges public to remember detained women in Louisianahttps://www.reuters.com/world/us/tufts-student-returns-massachusetts-after-release-immigration-custody-2025-05-11/
#EndBlockadeOfGaza
#DefendAcademicFreedom
#ReleaseMahmoudKhalil
#repression
#NoDeportationForRümeysaÖztürk
#NoDeportationForMohsenMahdawi
#StopTheDeportations
#DefendFreeSpeech
#ProtestIsNotACrime
#DefendStudentProtesters
#NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine
#DefendRuleOfLaw #RümeysaÖztürk
#USA #US #USPolitics #politics #Trump
#news #press @palestine -
Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk released from immigration detention
#HackerNews #TuftsGraduateStudent #ImmigrationDetention #RümeysaÖztürk #Freedom #Advocacy #News
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Rümeysa Öztürk is BACK HOME in Massachusetts!
Live: Rümeysa Öztürk press conference at Logan, Sen Markey speaking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrHq1xKtdEM
#RümeysaÖztürk #MAPol #Somerpol #SOmerpoli #USpol #SomervilleMA #boston #massachusetts #tufts #
