The detention of Rümeysa Ozturk and her elimination from Massachusetts to Louisiana raises severe questions in regards to the authorities’s motives and assertions, in response to a bunch of Bay State lawmakers who’re demanding solutions about her apprehension from Trump administration officers.
Ozturk, a fifth-year doctoral pupil learning at Tufts College on a pupil visa, was apprehended by masked immigration brokers in Somerville on March 25. Her arrest got here after her visa was revoked over alleged help for Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. Defenders of the Turkish nationwide say her speech would, beneath regular circumstances, be thought-about First Modification protected speech.
Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley blasted Secretary of Homeland Safety Kristi Noem and performing ICE Director Todd Lyons for the apprehension of Ozturk in a letter despatched Tuesday demanding solutions about her arrest and imprisonment in Louisiana.
Federal brokers, they are saying, apprehended Öztürk with out figuring out themselves, “placed her in an unmarked vehicle, and moved her on a circuitous route through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, before placing her on a flight to Louisiana the following morning.”
“ICE asserts that no bed space was available anywhere in the region, raising serious questions about whether the agency is intentionally misrepresenting facts to justify strategic relocations,” the lawmakers write.
The trio needs to know why Ozturk was held in three completely different states, when ICE determined to maneuver her south and who made the decision, how a lot it price, if transferring her to Louisiana was completed for political causes and the way ICE justifies sending individuals to a facility with a “documented history of abuse and inadequate legal access.”
“The transfer and detention of Ms. Öztürk — along with other students — raises urgent concerns about due process, transparency, and judicial forum shopping, threatening to undermine public trust in our immigration system. We urge your prompt and thorough response to these inquiries,” they write.
Warren, Markey and Pressley’s letter calls for a response by Might 6.
The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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