Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University grad student, was detained by masked ICE agents

On March 25, 2025, Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk reportedly was apprehended and detained by six masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Somerville, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.

Ozturk was a Fulbright scholar studying for her Ph.D. at Tufts University. Videos of her purported arrest went viral on social media and garnered massive outrage. The Somerville Times reported that on the next day a large group of people protested her detention in a local park on the grounds that she was illegally arrested because of her political views.

Snopes' readers searched the site looking for more information on Ozturk and to find out if she was really arrested. 

She was — and two widely circulated videos showing Ozturk's detention accurately depicted it.

According to CNN, one came from security camera footage. It contained a time stamp that aligned with information provided by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson on Ozturk's detention. The other video was shared on X and was reportedly recorded by an individual in a nearby building.

Both videos showed Ozturk being approached by multiple people wearing masks. An agent took Ozturk's phone before she was handcuffed and led into an unmarked car. Using Google Streetview, Snopes identified both videos as being filmed at the intersection of Mason Street and Electric Avenue in Somerville.

A senior DHS spokesperson provided the following statement:

"DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. [...] Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Rumeysa Ozturk's presence and activities in the United States would have 'potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.'"

The DHS statement did not provide any examples of Ozturk's "activities in support of Hamas." Ozturk did co-author one Op-Ed opinion article in Tufts' student newspaper, the Tufts Daily, calling for the university to recognize the Palestinian genocide and divest from Israel, but that op-ed did not mention Hamas.

Ozturk is not the first student who has shared pro-Palestine views to be detained by ICE agents. Earlier in March, agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a 2024 graduate of Columbia University with a green card who was a negotiator for protesters during pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus. 

According to NBC News, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a news conference in Guyana that he thought the State Department had canceled more than 300 student visas at that point. "We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," he said.

The Guardian reported that two days after Ozturk's arrest, Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani ordered that she was not to be transferred out of Massachusetts without 48 hours' notice.

However, according to the DHS spokesperson, she is currently being held in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center. Meanwhile, ICE's online detainee search showed Ozturk was being held in Louisiana, but at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center. The Wall Street Journal reported that Justice Department lawyers claimed Ozturk was transferred before the judge's order was put in place.

In a statement released the day Ozturk was arrested, Tufts University President Sunil Kumar said that the university "had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event."