‘Looked like a kidnapping’: Student’s arrest in Trump crackdown caught on camera By Jake Offenhartz, Kathy Mccormack and Michael Casey March 27, 2025 https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-...gents-in-trump-crackdown-20250327-p5lmy9.html Boston: A Turkish doctoral student who once co-authored an opinion piece about Palestinians in Gaza has been taken into custody and her visa terminated in scenes captured on video that one supporter said amounted to a political kidnapping. Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, was walking on Tuesday evening to meet her friends for iftar – a meal that breaks that fast at sunset during Ramadan – when she was surprised by agents from the Department of Homeland Security. They arrested her on the footpath near her home in Somerville, a university town north of Boston. In this image taken from security footage, Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on a street in Sommerville, Massachusetts.Credit: AP Supporters say Ozturk’s detention is the first known immigration arrest of a Boston-area student engaged in Palestinian activism to be carried out by President Donald Trump’s administration. It has detained or sought to detain several foreign-born students who are legally in the United States. The Trump administration argues that certain protests are antisemitic and can undermine US foreign policy. Ozturk was one of four students who co-authored an op-ed piece in The Tufts Daily a year ago, criticising the university for its response to resolutions passed by its community union body, which demanded Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”, disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. Friends said Ozturk was not closely involved in protests against Israel. But after the opinion piece was published, her name, photograph and work history were featured by Canary Mission, a website that says it documents people who “promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses”. The opinion piece was the only cited example of “anti-Israel activism” by Ozturk. Her detention and visa cancellation have been condemned as an assault on free speech and her supporters rallied in Somerville on Wednesday, demanding Ozturk’s release. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home to meet with friends when she was detained by US Department of Homeland Security agents, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said. “We need to call what happened to Rumeysa what it is: state-sanctioned political kidnapping,” one said, according to US broadcaster NBC. Surveillance footage obtained by The Associated Press of Ozturk’s arrest appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed. “We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding your faces?” Ozturk’s lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said her client had a visa allowing her to study in the United States. “We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her. No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of,” she said. ‘This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation’ Neighbours said they were left rattled by the arrest, which played out at 5.30pm on a residential block. “It looked like a kidnapping,” said Michael Mathis, a 32-year-old software engineer whose surveillance camera captured the arrest. “They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They’re covering their faces. They’re in unmarked vehicles.” Tufts University president Sunil Kumar said in a statement that the school received reports that federal authorities had detained an international graduate student and that the student’s visa had been terminated. “The university had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event,” Kumar said. He did not name the student, but university spokesperson Patrick Collins confirmed that Ozturk is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Democratic Congress member Ayanna Pressley called the arrest “a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech”. “She must be immediately released,” Pressley said in a statement. “We won’t stand by while the Trump administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms.” Massachusetts Attorney-General Andrea Joy Campbell called the video “disturbing”. Hundreds of people gather in Somerville to demand the release of Rumeysa OzturkCredit: AP “Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views,” she said. “This isn’t public safety, it’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinised in court.” US District Judge Indira Talwani issued an order giving the government until Friday to answer why Ozturk was being detained. Talwani also ordered that Ozturk not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice. But as of Wednesday evening, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) online detainee locator system listed her as being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Centre in Basile, Louisiana. A senior DHS spokesperson confirmed Ozturk’s detention and the termination of her visa. “DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organisation 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. This is commonsense security,” the spokesperson told the AP. ‘She’s never spoken badly to anyone’ Students and faculty members elsewhere also have recently had visas revoked or been blocked from entering the US because they attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians. President Donald Trump’s administration has cited a seldom-invoked legal statute that authorises the secretary of state to revoke visas of non-citizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests. Hundreds of people rallied in a Somerville park to support Ozturk on Wednesday, with speaker after speaker demanding her release and accusing both major political parties of failing to protect immigrants and stand up for Palestinians. “Free Rumeysa Ozturk now,” the crowd chanted, along with traditional protest slogans such as “Free, free Palestine”. Many held Palestinian flags and homemade signs supporting her and opposing ICE. Before attending Tufts, Ozturk graduated with a master’s degree from the developmental psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, according to an alumni spotlight article in 2021. Reyyan Bilge, a psychology professor at Northeastern University and a friend of Ozturk’s, described her as a “soft-spoken, kind and gentle soul” who is deeply focused on her research and not closely involved in the campus protests. The two first met at Istanbul Sehir University, where Bilge supervised her thesis, before working together on cognitive research and co-publishing papers. They remained close after Ozturk arrived in the United States to continue her studies on a Fulbright Scholarship at Columbia in 2018. “Over the 10 years I’ve known her, she’s never spoken badly to anyone else, let alone being antisemitic or racist,” Bilge said. AP with Reuters
Hamas is trying to stop the protests against it in Gaza by executing people and claiming they are "suspected Israeli spies". Hamas' "revolutionary courts" are nothing more than torture chambers used before execution. But this is the same thing that Hamas has been doing in Gaza since 2005. Hamas executes suspected spies in Gaza as Israeli strikes on officials ramp up - report Those “who were proven to be guilty of espionage have already been executed, while investigations are still ongoing with others,” a source said. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-847975 Hamas has executed individuals it deemed suspects of espionage in areas of the Gaza Strip where officials of the terror group have been targeted, sources within Hamas told Saudi-owned news outlet Asharq Al-Awsat on Friday. According to the report, the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that the terror group had carried out "revolutionary courts" for such suspects. Those “who were proven to be guilty of espionage have already been executed, while investigations are still ongoing with others,” a source reportedly said. Since the resumption of fighting on March 18, the IDF has killed 150 terrorists, including 10 top Hamas officials, in widespread strikes on the Gaza Strip, The Jerusalem Post learned. Among those confirmed killed in an IDF strike were Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou, Issam al-Da'alis, who has served as Hamas’s political Gazan prime minister, Mahmoud Abu Watfa, the director-general of Hamas's Interior Ministry and related terror forces, Bahjat Abu Sultan, operational chief of Hamas's internal security apparatus, and Hamas justice minister Ahmed Omar al-Hatta.
Hamas begins brutal crackdown on Gaza protests with torture, executions Residents in the enclave say terror group executed at least six organizers; Gaza City resident returned to his family after four hours of torture and died shortly afterward, while others reported missing Einav Halabi | published: Yesterday https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjl5xnua1x Anti-Hamas protests in Gaza (Photo: AP) Gazans protest against Hamas, call for an end to war (Photo: AFP) Hamas has begun cracking down on Gazans who participated in recent protests against the group’s rule, executing six people and publicly beating others, according to Palestinian activists and residents. Among those killed was Odai al-Rubai, 22, a resident of Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. Al-Rubai had called for public demonstrations and spoken out against Hamas on social media. He was abducted by Hamas operatives, tortured for four hours, and then returned to his family as he lay dying, witnesses said. He was beaten with clubs and metal rods in front of passersby,” said one resident who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. Another resident, Hussam al-Majdalawi, was reportedly kidnapped and beaten in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Al-Majdalawi, who had also spoken against Hamas, was shot in the legs and left wounded in a public square, according to eyewitnesses. Hamza al-Masri, a Gaza-based social activist who lost an eye after being tortured by Hamas in the past, said the crackdown was part of a broader effort to silence dissent. “Just for asking to live, a Hamas military unit kidnapped several young men, including helpless Odai,” al-Masri wrote on social media. “Hours after he was taken, he was returned to his family without life.” He accused Hamas of maintaining tight control over local media, preventing journalists from reporting on abuses. “There isn’t a single journalist in Gaza who can speak about the crimes being committed here,” he said. “The world has no idea what’s happening.” Large protests erupted earlier this month across Gaza, with thousands of Palestinians demanding an end to the ongoing war with Israel and criticizing Hamas’ governance. However, demonstrations subsided Friday, and no new calls for protest have emerged. Palestinian sources said other demonstrators have gone missing in recent days, as Hamas seeks to reassert control and deter further dissent.
The cover-up This article is more than 23 years old At the height of the six-day war in 1967, Israel attacked a US spy ship, killing 34 men and injuring many more. The Israelis claimed it was an accident, the Americans backed them up. But, as James Bamford reveals in his new book, both governments concealed the horrific truth James Bamford Wed 8 Aug 2001 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/aug/08/israel Early in the morning of Thursday June 8 1967 and the first rays of sun spilled softly over the Sinai's blond waves of sand. A little more than a dozen miles north, in the choppy eastern Mediterranean, the USS Liberty headed eastward. But the calmness was like quicksand - deceptive, inviting and friendly - until it was too late. As the Liberty passed the desert town of El Arish, it was being closely watched. About 4,000ft above was an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft. At 6.05am, the observer on the plane reported back to Israeli naval headquarters: "What we could see were the letters written on that ship and we gave these letters to ground control," he said. The letters were "GTR-5" - the Liberty's identification. "GTR" stood for "General Technical Research" - a cover designation for the National Security Agency (NSA)'s fleet of spy ships. The Liberty was in dangerous waters at a dangerous time. The six-day war, in which Israeli air and ground forces launched a massive attack on Egypt, Syria and Jordan, was raging. Fearing involvement in a Middle East war, the US joint chiefs of staff needed rapid intelligence on the ground situation in Egypt. Ships were considered the best option for the job. They could sail relatively close and pick up the most important signals. Also, unlike aircraft, they could remain on station for weeks at a time, eavesdropping, locating transmitters, and analysing the intelligence. And so the Liberty, which was large, fast and had been stationed relatively close on the Ivory Coast, had been ordered in. Throughout the morning, the ship sailed on, with reconnaissance repeated at approximately 30-minute intervals. At one point, an Israeli air force Noratlas Nord 2501 circled the ship and headed back towards the Sinai. "It had a big Star of David on it and it was flying just a little bit above our mast," recalled crew member Larry Weaver. "I was actually able to wave to the co-pilot. He waved back and actually smiled at me - I could see him that well. There's no question about it. They had seen the ship's markings and the American flag. They could damn near see my rank. The underway flag was definitely flying, especially when you're that close to a war zone." By 9.50am, the minaret at El Arish could be seen with the naked eye like a solitary mast in a sea of sand. Although no one on the ship knew it at the time, the Liberty had suddenly trespassed into a private horror. At that very moment, near the minaret, Israeli forces were engaged in a criminal slaughter. Three days after Israel had launched the six- day war, Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai had become a nuisance. There was no place to house them, not enough Israelis to watch them, and few vehicles to transport them to prison camps. But there was another way to deal with them. As the Liberty sat within eyeshot of El Arish, eavesdropping on surrounding communications, Israeli soldiers turned the town into a slaughterhouse, systematically butchering their prisoners. An eyewitness recounted how in the shadow of the El Arish mosque, they lined up about 60 unarmed Egyptian prisoners, hands tied behind their backs, and then opened fire with machine guns until the pale desert sand turned red. This and other war crimes were just some of the secrets Israel had sought to conceal since the start of the conflict. An essential element in the Israeli battle plan seemed to have been to hide much of the war behind a carefully constructed curtain of lies: lies about the Egyptian threat, lies about who started the war, lies to the US president, lies to the UN Security Council, lies to the press, lies to the public. Thus, as the American naval historian Dr Richard K Smith noted, "any instrument which sought to penetrate this smoke screen so carefully thrown around the normal 'fog of war' would have to be frustrated". Into this sea of deception and slaughter sailed the USS Liberty, an enormous spy factory loaded with the latest eavesdropping gear. About noon, as the Liberty was again in sight of El Arish, and while the massacres were taking place, an army commander there reported that a ship was shelling them from the sea. But that was impossible. The only ship in the vicinity was the Liberty, and she was eavesdropping, not shooting. As any observer would have recognised, the ship was a tired old second world war vessel crawling with antennae, and unthreatening to anyone - unless it was their secrets, not their lives, they wanted to protect. By then the Israeli navy and air force had conducted more than six hours of close surveillance of the Liberty off the Sinai and must have positively identified it as an American electronic spy ship. They knew she was the only military ship in the area. Nevertheless, the order was given to kill her and at 12.05pm, three motor torpedo boats from the port of Ashdod, about 50 miles away, departed. Israeli air force fighters, loaded with 50mm cannon ammunition, rockets and napalm, followed. Without warning, the Israeli jets - swept-wing Dassault Mirage IIICs - struck. On board Liberty, Lieutenant Painter observed that the aircraft had "absolutely no markings", their identity unclear. He then attempted to reach the men manning the gun mounts, but it was too late. "I was trying to contact these two kids," he recalled, "and I saw them both; well, I didn't exactly see them as such. They were blown apart, but I saw the whole area go up in smoke and scattered metal. At about the same time, the aircraft strafed the bridge area. The quarter-master, Petty Officer Third Class Pollard, was standing right next to me, and he was hit." The Mirages raked the ship from bow to stern with armour-piercing lead. A bomb exploded near the whaleboat aft of the bridge, and those in the pilothouse and the bridge were thrown from their feet. Commander William L McGonagle grabbed for the engine order annunciator and rang up all ahead flank. In the communications spaces, radiomen James Halman and Joseph Ward had patched together enough equipment and broken antennae to get a distress call off to the Sixth Fleet, despite intense jamming by the Israelis. "Any station, this is Rockstar," Halman shouted, using the Liberty's voice call sign. "We are under attack by unidentified jet aircraft and require immediate assistance." "Great, wonderful, she's burning, she's burning," said an Israeli pilot. At 2.09pm, the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, operating near Crete, acknowledged Liberty's cry for help. "I am standing by for further traffic," it signalled. After taking out the gun mounts, the Israeli fighter pilots turned their attention to the antennae so the ship could not call for help or pick up any more revealing interceptions. Then the planes attacked the bridge, killing instantly the ship's executive officer. With the Liberty now deaf, blind, and silenced, unable to call for help or move, the Israeli pilots proceeded to kill her. Designed to punch holes in the toughest tanks, their shells tore through the Liberty's steel plating like hot nails through butter, exploding into jagged bits of shrapnel and butchering men deep in their living quarters. As the slaughter continued, neither the Israelis nor the Liberty crew had any idea that witnesses were present high above. Until now, that is. According to information, interviews and documents obtained, for nearly 35 years the NSA has hidden the fact that one of its planes - a Navy EC-121 ferret - was overhead at the time of the incident, eavesdropping on what was going on below. The interceptions from that plane, which answer some of the key questions about the attack, are among the NSA's deepest secrets. The ferret had taken off from Athens for its regular patrol of the eastern Mediterranean, and at about the time that the air attack was getting underway, Navy Chief Petty Officer Marvin Nowicki heard one of the other Hebrew linguists on the plane excitedly trying to get his attention on the secure intercom. "Hey, chief," he shouted, "I've got really odd activity on UHF. They mentioned an American flag. I don't know what's going on." Nowicki asked the linguist for the frequency and "rolled up to it". "Sure as the devil," said Nowicki, "Israeli aircraft were completing an attack on some object. I alerted the evaluator, giving him sparse details, adding that we had no idea what was taking place." Deep down in Liberty, Terry McFarland, head encased in earphones, was vaguely aware of flickers of light coming through the bulkhead. He had no idea that they were armour-piercing tracer bullets slicing through the ship's skin. Larry Weaver had run to his general quarters station but it was located on an old helicopter pad that left him exposed and vulnerable. He grabbed a dazed shipmate and pushed him into a safe corner. "I said, 'Fred, stay here, you've just got to because he's coming up the centre'," Weaver recalled. "I got in the foetal position," he said, "and before I closed my eyes I looked up and I saw the American flag and that was the last thing I saw before I was hit. I closed my eyes, just waiting for hell's horror to hit me. And I was hit by rocket and cannon fire that blew two and a half feet of my colon out and I received over 100 shrapnel wounds. It blew me up in the air about four and a half, five feet. And just blood everywhere." Stan White raced through the sick bay for the enclosed NSA spaces. "Torn and mutilated bodies were everywhere," he said. "Horrible sight!" As soon as the Mirages pulled away, they were replaced by Super Mystere fighters which raked the ship. A later analysis would show 821 separate hits on the hull and superstructure. Now, in addition to rocket, cannon, and machine-gun fire, the Mysteres attacked with 1,000lb bombs and napalm. Deafening explosions tore through the ship and the bridge disappeared in an orange-and-black ball. Lying wounded by shrapnel, his blood draining into his shoe, was Commander McGonagle. Seconds later the fighters were back. Flesh fused with iron as more strafing was followed by more rockets, followed by napalm. As the last fighter departed, having emptied out its onboard armoury, turning the Liberty's hull into a flaming mass of grey Swiss cheese, sailors lifted mutilated shipmates on to makeshift stretchers of pipe frame and chicken wire. Damage control crews pushed through passageways of suffocating smoke and blistering heat, and the chief petty officer's lounge was converted into a macabre sea of blood-soaked mattresses and shattered bodies. After landing back at Athens airport, Nowicki and the intercept crew were brought directly to the processing centre. "By the time we arrived at the USA-512J compound," he said, "collateral reports were coming in to the station about the attack on the USS Liberty. The NSA civilians took our tapes and began transcribing. It was pretty clear that Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats attacked a ship in the east Med. Although the attackers never gave a name or a hull number, the ship was identified as flying an American flag. We logically concluded that the ship was the USS Liberty." At 2.50pm (Liberty time), 50 minutes after the first shells tore into the ship and as the attack was still going on, the aircraft carrier USS America, cruising near Crete, was ordered to launch four armed A-4 Skyhawks. At the same time, the carrier USS Saratoga was also told to send four armed A-1 attack planes to defend the ship. "Sending aircraft to cover you," the Sixth Fleet told the Liberty at 3:05pm (9.05am in Washington). "Surface units on the way." At that moment in Washington, President Johnson was at his desk, on the phone, alternately shouting at congressional leaders and coaxing them to support his position on several pieces of pending legislation. But four minutes later he was interrupted by Walt Rostow, national security adviser, on the other line. "The Liberty has been torpedoed in the Mediterranean," Rostow told Johnson excitedly. The NSA's worst fears had come true. "After considerations of personnel safety," said deputy director Tordella, "one of my immediate concerns, considering the depth of the water and the distance of the ship off shore, had to do with the classified materials on board." Tordella got on the phone to the Joint Reconnaissance Centre (JCS) and spoke to the deputy director, a Navy captain named Vineyard. "I expressed my concern that the written material be burned if at all possible, and that the electronic equipment be salvaged if that were possible," he said. But Tordella was not prepared for what he heard. According to NSA documents - classified top secret- he was told that some senior officials in Washington wanted above all to protect Israel from embarrassment. "Captain Vineyard had mentioned during this conversation," wrote Tordella, "that consideration was then being given by some unnamed Washington authorities to sink[ing] the Liberty in order that newspaper men would be unable to photograph her and thus inflame public opinion against the Israelis. I made an impolite comment about the idea." Almost immediately, Tordella wrote a memorandum for the record, describing the conversation, and then locked it away. A cover story for the Liberty was then quickly devised. "She was a communications research ship that was diverted from her research assignment," it said, "to provide improved communication-relay links with the several US embassies around the entire Mediterranean during the current troubles." On the Liberty, black smoke was still escaping through more than 800 holes in the hull, and the effort to hush up the incident had already begun. Within hours of the attack, which left 34 men dead and two-thirds of the rest of the crew wounded, Israel asked President Johnson to quietly bury the incident. "Embassy Tel Aviv," said a highly secret, very limited distribution message to the state department, "urged de-emphasis on publicity since proximity of vessel to scene of conflict was fuel for Arab suspicions that the US was aiding Israel." Shortly thereafter, a total news ban was ordered by the Pentagon. No one in the field was allowed to say anything about the attack. All information was to come only from a few senior Washington officials. Later that morning, Johnson took the unusual step of ordering the JCS to recall its fighters while the Liberty still lay smouldering, sinking, fearful of another attack and with its decks covered with the dead, dying and wounded. On board the flagship of the Sixth Fleet, Rear Admiral Lawrence R Geis, who commanded the carrier force in the Mediterranean, was angry and puzzled at the recall and protested to the secretary of defence, Robert S McNamara. Geis was shocked by what he heard next. "President Lyndon Johnson came on with a comment that he didn't care if the ship sunk, he would not embarrass his allies." Geis told Lieutenant Commander David Lewis, head of the NSA group on the Liberty, about the comment but asked him to keep it secret until after Geis died. It was a promise that Lewis kept. In the days following the attack, the Israeli government gave the US government a classified report that attempted to justify the claim that the attack was a mistake. On the basis of that same report, an Israeli court of inquiry completely exonerated the government and all those involved. No one was ever court-martialled, reduced in rank or even reprimanded. On the contrary, Israel chose instead to honour motor torpedo boat 203, which fired the deadly torpedo at the Liberty. The ship's wheel and bell were placed on prominent display at the naval museum, among the maritime artefacts of which the Israeli navy was most proud. Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel had attacked the ship and killed the American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson administration and Congress covered up the entire incident. Johnson was planning to run for president the following year and needed the support of pro-Israel voters. A mistake or mass murder? It was a question Congress never bothered to address in public hearings at the time. Among those who have long called for an in-depth congressional investigation is Admiral Thomas Moorer, who went on to become chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. "Congress to this day," he said, "has failed to hold formal hearings for the record on the Liberty affair. This is unprecedented and a national disgrace." Perhaps it is not too late. Extracted from Body of Secrets by James Bamford, published by Century at £20 © 2001 James Bamford
These lies by politicians and media, they continue to this day, nothing has changed. And sheeple, so stupid and gullible, rally behind their political leaders as if they were God's chosen.
Rubio says US revoked visas of more than 300 pro-Palestinian activists “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio said at a press conference. Friday 28/03/2025 https://thearabweekly.com/rubio-says-us-revoked-visas-more-300-pro-palestinian-activists US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with reporters on his plane while flying from Suriname en route to Miami, Florida, March 27, 2025. REUTERS GEORGETOWN US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday the US State Department may have revoked more than 300 visas and warned that the Trump administration was looking every day for “these lunatics” after Washington this week detained and revoked the visa of a Turkish student at Tufts University. Rubio’s comments were in response to a question about Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student who was detained on Tuesday evening in Somerville, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, by masked and plainclothes agents. Her detention was the latest Trump administration action against a foreign student who had voiced support for Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza. “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio said at a press conference in Guyana, without elaborating on whose visas had been revoked. Speaking to reporters on the plane back to Washington, Rubio said the 300 revoked visas were a combination of student and visitor visas. He said he signed every single action. Since President Donald Trump returned to office on January 20, Rubio has moved aggressively against students at the forefront of on-campus anti-Israel protests in response to the Gaza war. The most high-profile case is Mahmoud Khalil, who led protests at Columbia University in New York. He was arrested this month and taken to Louisiana ahead of deportation proceedings, despite being a US permanent resident. “At some point, I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them, but we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.” The top US diplomat confirmed the State Department revoked Ozturk’s visa but did not address details when asked what specific actions Ozturk had taken that merited such a move. Rubio said Washington would take away any visa that has been previously issued if students would participate in actions such as “vandalising universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.” Rubio did not say whether Ozturk had participated in those activities but said that what was presented to him about her case had met the standard of “people that are supportive of movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States.” Ozturk, a Fulbright Scholar and student in Tufts’ doctoral programme for Child Study and Human Development, had been in the country on an F-1 visa to study. Her arrest came a year after Ozturk co-authored an opinion piece in the school’s student paper, the Tufts Daily, that criticised the Medford, Massachusetts-based university’s response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.” Following Ozturk’s arrest, her lawyer filed a lawsuit arguing her detention was unlawful. While a federal judge in Boston on Tuesday night ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to not move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice, the US Department of Justice in a filing on Thursday said that she was now in Louisiana and had been detained outside of Massachusetts at the time the lawsuit was filed. Mahsa Khanbabai, her lawyer, in a statement late on Wednesday called the claims against her client “baseless” and noted she had not been accused of any crime. “It appears the only thing she is being targeted for is her right to free speech,” Khanbabai said. Ozturk’s supporters say her detention is the first known immigration arrest of a Boston-area student engaged in such activism to be carried out by the Trump administration, which has detained or sought to detain several foreign-born students who are in the US legally and have been involved in pro-Palestinian protests. The actions have been condemned by critics as an assault on free speech. Republican President Donald Trump’s administration argues that certain protests are anti-Semitic and can undermine US foreign policy.