Secretary of State Marco Rubio has hinted that a hijab-wearing student was dramatically detained by ICE for her connection to disruptive campus protests.

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, who is from Turkey and currently studying at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was swarmed by a group of individuals near her off-campus home on Tuesday.

While the specific reason for Ozturk’s detention has not been disclosed, Rubio insinuated that she may be one of the ‘social activists that tear up our university campuses.’ 

This is in reference to the swarm of college protests that erupted across the country after Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – triggering an outpouring of pro-Palestine support from students. 

US District Court Judge Indira Talwani ordered Ozturk to remain in the state and that the government give 48 hours’ notice before moving her.

A Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday that Ozturk had been transferred to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana.

It remains unclear at this time if Ozturk had already been taken to Louisiana at the time of Talwani’s order. She has yet to be charged with a crime. 

Rubio defended Ozturk’s detention on Thursday, claiming the administration will not give visas to students who participate in violent protests – perhaps hinting at Ozturk’s involvement. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the ICE detention of a hijab-wearing student claiming the administration will not give visas to students who participate in violent protests

Rumeysa Ozturk (pictured), 30, who is from Turkey and currently studying at Tufts University in Massachusetts was detained by ICE on Tuesday

‘If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa,’ Rubio said. 

‘We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that we’re going to take it away.

‘We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country.’

Her detention comes as the Trump Administration is looking to crack down on ‘pro-Hamas’ college students, and three other international students – Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung  and Badar Khan Suri –  have been detained as part of the campus crackdown.

Footage of her being taken in showed a group of six people approaching her from angles, all of whom are masked and wearing gold identification badges.

As two men approach her she can be heard screaming out in horror, and is visibly shaking in the clip.

‘We’re the police,’ members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard on camera saying, ‘Why are you hiding your faces?’

The group put in her handcuffs and grab her backpack from her before pulling her towards a black SUV parked across the street.

Her lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said that it was agents from the Department of Homeland Security who had taken Ozturk.

Ozturk was one of four students last March who co-authored an op-ed piece in The Tufts Daily.

Ozturk was swarmed by a group of individuals near her off-campus home on Tuesday

The group put in her handcuffs and grab her backpack from her before pulling her towards a black SUV parked across the street

The piece criticized the university’s response to its community union Senate passing resolutions demanding that Tufts ‘acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,’ disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.

It said: ‘These resolutions were the product of meaningful debate by the Senate and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law.’

It added that the university’s response to the resolutions ‘has been wholly inadequate and dismissive of the Senate, the collective voice of the student body.’

Before attending Tufts, Ozturk graduated with a master’s degree from the Developmental Psychology program at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, according to an alumni spotlight article in 2021.

Her focus was children´s media. She was also a 2018 Fulbright scholar at Columbia.

Ozturk’s detention comes after President Trump signed an order on January 29 that declared a crackdown on anti-Semitism which included university campuses.

The order had said his administration would wield US policy to ‘remove’ aliens, who engage in ‘unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence’.