Court documents show Trump attempted to deport student over pro-Palestine opinion piece

Recently published court documents reveal that a Turkish university student was apprehended by US immigration officials in Massachusetts last year over an opinion piece she authored, which condemned Israel's genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

In March of the previous year, Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral candidate at Tufts University, was casually walking along the street when she was unexpectedly apprehended by plainclothes immigration officers. Following her arrest, she was taken to a detention facility located in Louisiana, where she remained there for six weeks.

The deportation of Ozturk received approval from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Nonetheless, a federal judge intervened, halting the deportation and mandating her release from federal detention in May.

Authorities from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sought to apprehend Ozturk following her publication of an article in the student newspaper, in which she urged Tufts to “recognize the genocide of Palestinians.”

At the time, President Donald Trump and the Israel lobby in the US were seeking to clamp down on a wave of student protests at universities across the country, which demanded an end to Israel's bombing campaign and destruction of Gaza.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted that Ozturk was involved in actions that supported Hamas, which is recognized as a foreign terrorist group on the American soil.

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A memo from the State Department said her student visa was revoked due to assertions that her behavior “may undermine US foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization.”

Nevertheless, a separate State Department memo that was made public through the recent court documents indicates that DHS, ICE, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) had not identified that Ozturk had “engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally.”

The State Department memos further reveal that the White House had difficulty locating any proof to support the decision to revoke Ozturk's visa.

A recent discovery from the newly released documents shows that White House officials questioned the legality of deporting Ozturk and other pro-Palestine student demonstrators, considering that laws safeguarding free speech may not support such actions in court.

William K. Sessions, a US district court judge for Vermont, remarked that releasing Ozturk was necessary because her ongoing imprisonment might suppress the expression of countless individuals in the country who are not citizens.

A genocidal campaign that started in October 2023 and continued for nearly two years resulted in the deaths of at least 71,660 Palestinians and inflicted injuries on an additional 171,419 people.

Widespread devastation resulting from the war included damage or destruction of around 90% of Gaza's civilian infrastructure. The United Nations estimates that the cost for reconstruction is approximately $70 billion.

A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect last October, but the war-ravaged territory is still grappling with post-war destruction, deteriorating health conditions and shortages of food and medicine supplies.   

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