While in Georgetown, Guyana, on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked by a reporter about what led to the arrest of Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk. The reporter mentioned an opinion piece Öztürk co-wrote in March 2024, published in The Tufts Daily, advocating for students’ calls to divest the school from companies with ties to Israel.

Rubio seemed to downplay the influence of the op-ed, written alongside three other Tufts graduate students, instead insinuating without evidence that Öztürk, a Turkish citizen, had vandalized her university, occupied buildings, and harassed students.

“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa,” Rubio said.

Government documents included in court filings, however, don’t back up Rubio’s claims of supposed unlawful behavior.

Several days before her arrest on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security revoked Öztürk’s student visa without notifying her, according to a DHS document through its Student and Exchange Visitor Program, through which Öztürk had obtained her visa.

The government didn’t claim that Öztürk had broken any laws but instead cited a civil law provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The provision gives the secretary of state the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a U.S. citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.

The government has made the same argument in detaining former Columbia University student activist leader Mahmoud Khalil and Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri, as well as in its efforts to arrest Columbia student Yunseo Chung.

“Her arrest and detention appear to be based solely on her co-authorship of an op-ed in her school newspaper.”

In each of these cases, attorneys for the students argued the Trump administration’s crackdown on students and academics over their support for Palestine are ultimately an attack on their free speech rights. 

Öztürk’s case is notable in that her detention and possible deportation may very well center on a published piece of journalism. 

“Her arrest and detention appear to be based solely on her co-authorship of an op-ed in her school newspaper,” Öztürk’s attorneys wrote in a habeas petition for her release filed on Friday. “Rümeysa’s arrest and detention are designed to punish her speech and chill the speech of others. Indeed, her arrest and detention are part of a concerted and systemic effort by Trump administration officials to punish students and others identified with pro-Palestine activism.”

Activists and free speech advocates have been quick to remind that crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech did not begin with the Trump administration. 

Since October 7, 2023, schools have censored, suspended, or fired professors and students over their speech on Palestine and Israel. In response to student encampments, President Joe Biden delivered law-and-order messages to protesters, accusing pro-Palestinian movements of antisemitism. 

School administrators regularly called police on student protests, leading to violent arrests. In his statement from jail dictated to lawyers by phone, Khalil blamed Columbia’s administrators for having “laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked.”

In the case of Öztürk, such doxing campaigns may have been a factor in her arrest. Attorneys said Öztürk feared for her safety after pro-Israel group Canary Mission posted about her in early February, pointing to her 2024 essay. Canary Mission, which shares personal information about pro-Palestine activists online and is often used by other Zionist groups to dox people, said Öztürk took part in “anti-Israel activism” and cited her 2024 opinion piece as its sole source to back its claim. 

While it is not known whether the State Department was aware of the Canary Mission post, right-wing Zionist groups have been willing collaborators in helping direct the administration toward “pro-Hamas” individuals for deportation.

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In its “Catch and Revoke” program, the State Department also scours the social media accounts of student visa holders for purported pro-Hamas sentiment, which the government has conflated with pro-Palestine views.

Free speech advocates note that professing support for both Palestine and Hamas is protected by the First Amendment. Even so, international students have been increasingly careful about what they write or say online, legal advocates for student protesters told The Intercept. The recent arrests have also given international students pause over whether they should remain in the U.S. 

During the press conference, Rubio also confirmed Axios reporting that the State Department has already revoked at least 300 student visas. 

Rubio said, “We do it every day — every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.” 

There are about 1.5 million student visa holders in the U.S.

After Öztürk’s arrest, DHS passed reporters an unsubstantiated claim that Öztürk had “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”

Öztürk’s op-ed, however, never mentions Hamas. 

Instead, the 800-word opinion piece references mounting evidence of Israel’s violations of international law in its war in Gaza. It criticized the Tufts administration’s double standard of espousing diversity, civic engagement, and the exchange of ideas, but failing to uphold those values in its rejection of the students’ demands.

The piece also pointed to the movement against South African apartheid and Tufts’ decision in 1989 to divest from South Africa “and end its complicity with the then-racist regime.” 

Several weeks before publishing the essay, Tufts’ student governing body had passed a series of resolutions, among them a call for the school to disclose and halt all of the university’s investments in companies tied to Israel. Hours after the vote, however, university administrators flatly rejected the resolutions. The following day, more than 150 students responded by holding a rally and die-in on campus. 

The Tufts Daily March 26, 2024, opinion piece was a part of the growing campuswide dissent to the university’s rejection of student demands. The discontent would culminate in the school’s Palestinian solidarity encampment, which would last about one month before it was voluntarily dismantled by student activists. 

“Unfortunately, the University’s response to the Senate resolutions has been wholly inadequate and dismissive of the Senate, the collective voice of the student body,” Öztürk and her co-authors wrote.

On Tuesday, exactly one year after the op-ed was published, masked plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Öztürk outside of her Somerville, Massachusetts, home as she was on her way to to break her Ramadan fast with friends. Footage of her arrest, which was shared widely online, sparked immediate outrage with many referring to the arrest as “a kidnapping” or an “abduction.” For nearly 24 hours, Öztürk’s family and legal team was unaware of her whereabouts.

In defiance of a federal judge’s order to keep Öztürk in Massachusetts, ICE flew Öztürk to the South Louisiana Correctional Center, a privately run ICE jail, where she remains incarcerated.

Öztürk did not have access to her medications during the flight and suffered an asthma attack, her attorneys said in court filings.

Massachusetts District Court Judge Denise Casper issued an order on Friday preventing the government from deporting Öztürk as the battle for her release plays out in court. 

On Wednesday, more than 1,000 people rallied near the Tufts campus to protest the government’s case against Öztürk.

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A spokesperson for Öztürk’s legal team defended the 2024 op-ed in a statement Friday and said that Öztürk “is entitled to express her opinions freely.” They added that the DHS has yet to provide any evidence to support their deportation case.

“Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence of U.S. supplied bombs being dropped on Gaza killing over 1,000 people, including over 250 children in the last week. It appears the only thing Rumeysa is being targeted for is her right to free speech,” the spokesperson said.

Student journalists at Tufts have also stood firm against the Trump’s administration’s attacks on free speech. The Tufts Daily’s editors published a defense of Öztürk and her role in writing the op-ed.

“Öztürk’s contribution is an exercise of free speech — her fulfillment of a fundamental American value,” the editors wrote.

While the editors said they were sensitive to the “well-being of our writers and sources,” the paper has no plans of slowing its coverage of Öztürk’s case or future opinion pieces by students.

“That said, the withholding of ideas and abstinence from debate will only contribute to the erosion of free expression,” the editors wrote. “In a moment of uncertainty and turmoil, we will continue to defend independent journalism by sharing others’ viewpoints and stories.”