Above photo: Protesters with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and community members march to denounce the Trump administration’s recent attacks on free speech and immigrant rights including the arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk at Placita Olverain downtown Los Angeles on April 1, 2025. Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / Getty Images.
The State Department’s findings came in a memo issued days before DHS abducted Öztürk anyway.
The State Department internally found no evidence supporting the Trump administration’s reasoning for abducting and pushing to deport Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, new reporting finds, just days before immigration officials snatched her off the streets and took her to a horrific immigrant detention center anyway.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing a State Department memo, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had not provided any evidence of Öztürk engaging in activity labelled antisemitic or “terrorist” supporting. Additionally, searches of government databases did not turn up any evidence of Öztürk participating in terrorism-related activity.
As a result, Secretary of State Marco Rubio lacked grounds to revoke her visa under certain immigration provisions allowing him to do so. Instead, the department recommended a different authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act that legal experts cited by the Post say allow Rubio to revoke immigration status that does not require “a rationale and explanation and evidence.”
The agency recommended a “silent” revocation of Öztürk’s visa as part of that authority, the memo reportedly says, meaning that the administration would not notify her of the action.
Days later, immigration agents “disappeared” Öztürk, with footage showing that they swarmed her on the street outside of her home and forced her into an unmarked car.
She was shuffled through three places before officials shipped her to an ICE facility in Louisiana notorious for its abuses over a thousand miles from her home; while in detention, deprived of necessary medication, she has suffered from four asthma attacks, her legal team has said. A nurse at the Louisiana facility also reportedly forcibly removed Öztürk’s hijab at one point during a health check up, she said in a statement filed in court.
The memo’s findings bolster arguments by advocates for Palestinian rights and rights groups that the Trump administration’s actions against Öztürk are a plain violation of free speech rights. Reporting has revealed that the government’s arguments against Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil similarly lack evidence of criminal activity, and that Khalil is instead being targeted solely for his beliefs.
Despite Rubio’s suggestions otherwise, the State Department’s memo on Öztürk suggests that the administration’s only claim against her was a single op-ed the 30-year-old PhD student had written urging Tufts to divest from Israel, which did not express support for Hamas or contain any antisemitic sentiment. In February, Öztürk had been doxxed by the pro-Israel vigilante group Canary Mission, which referenced the op-ed.
DHS also cited the op-ed in a recommendation to the State Department written prior to the memo urging the agency to look into the authority to revoke her visa.
“OZTURK engaged in anti-Israel activism in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israelis on October 7, 2023,” read the recommendation, reportedly written by Andre Watson, a top DHS official. The op-ed, Watson wrote, “called for Tufts to ‘disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.’”