BOSTON (WHDH) - A Tufts University graduate who was detained by ICE in Somerville last year said Friday that she is returning to Turkey, citing “hostility” she has experienced in the United States.
Rümeysa Öztürk completed her PHD program at the university in February, and now she has left the country to live in Turkey.
“The time stolen from me by the U.S. government belongs not just to me, but to the children and youth I have dedicated my life to advocating for,” Öztürk said in a statement. “With them in mind, I am choosing to return home as planned to continue my career as a woman scholar without losing more time to the state-imposed violence and hostility I have experienced in the United States.”
In her statement, Öztürk also spoke about life as a foreign student in the United States. She invited all universities to do better about listening and valuing all of their students as equal community members, rather than favoring some and silencing others.
Öztürk’s move comes a year after a widely-viewed video surfaced that captured masked ICE agents arresting her on a street in Somerville on March 25, 2025 — in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas. Her attorneys said she was taken into custody for writing an op-ed in the Tufts student paper that advocated for Palestinian rights.
Following her arrest, she was taken to several ICE detention facilities before eventually being transfered to Louisiana where she was held for more than six weeks. She has faced legal issues in federal and immigration courts since then.
“What happened to Dr. Öztürk was wrong. Anyone who heard her story knows that what the government did was unlawful – to arrest and detain her for nothing other than her exercising her constitutionally protected right to speak,” said Jessie Rossman, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
An immigration judge terminated the removal proceedings against Öztürk earlier this year, finding the government had no reason to deport her. All of her outstanding cases have been dismissed amid her leaving the country.
The U.S. government confirmed that Öztürk’s legal status was fully reinstated for her time in the U.S. and that she was in lawful status at the time she left.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said, “DHS is glad to see Öztürk self-deported from the U.S. Visas provided to foreign students to live, study, and work, in the United States are a privilege, not a right.”
“Dr. Öztürk’s plan had been to continue her career in Turkey and under the terms of this settlement she has been able to return to her home so she can do that,” Rossman said.
If Öztürk wants to return to the United States, her attorneys say she would need to apply for a Visa.
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