"The Trump administration has weaponized our immigration system to target valued members of our communities, including scholars like Rümeysa. It has manipulated immigration laws to silence people who advocate for Palestinian human rights and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Secretly revoking the visa of someone who has maintained their lawful immigration status as an excuse to detain them and place them into deportation proceedings is Kafkaesque."
"She was held for over a month and released in May. But it wasn't until December that her status in SEVIS, the database for international students, was restored, allowing her to resume teaching and research. Öztürk's lawyers wrote in a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that an immigration judge fully halted the removal proceedings against Öztürk in late January, finding that the Department of Homeland Security did not meet 'its burden of proving removability.'"
Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish international Ph.D. student at Tufts University, was seized by plainclothes immigration officers in Somerville in March as part of a campaign targeting pro-Palestinian international scholars and students. She was held for over a month and released in May. Her SEVIS status was restored in December, allowing her to resume teaching and research. An immigration judge fully halted removal proceedings in late January, finding the Department of Homeland Security did not meet "its burden of proving removability." Her lawyer described the secret visa revocation and detention as a politically motivated misuse of immigration authority.
Read at Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
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