The United States has revoked the visa of Turkish student Rumeysa Öztürk, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday confirmed as he defended her arrest over her article criticizing Israel.
“We revoked her visa,” Rubio told a news conference in Guyana, referring to Öztürk’s F1 student visa. “We give you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.”
Rubio defended the decision, saying foreign students engaging in activism that disrupts university life would face similar consequences.
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings … We’re not going to give you a visa,” he said.
“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa,” he added.
However, Rubio did not provide any evidence linking Öztürk to violence. Her friends and family say she was arrested following a campaign by Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that blacklists pro-Palestine students and activists, stemming from an article she wrote criticizing Israel.
In 2024, Öztürk co-authored an op-ed for Tufts University’s newspaper, The Tufts Daily, urging the school to acknowledge what she described as the Palestinian genocide and to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Öztürk, a Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University and Fulbright scholar, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) late Tuesday near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, while heading to an iftar dinner to break her fast during Islam’s fasting month of Ramadan, according to her lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai.
She was taken into custody by masked federal agents in broad daylight, with authorities claiming she engaged in activities supporting the Palestinian group Hamas – an allegation her family and advocates strongly deny.
No charges have been filed against Öztürk, according to her lawyer. A viral video captured the moments of her detention, showing masked individuals handcuffing her and forcibly taking away her phone.
The ICE Locator website indicated that Öztürk was being held at a detention facility in Louisiana.
Öztürk’s detention also comes amid the Trump administration’s widespread crackdown on pro-Palestinian students and academics, including Palestinian activist and recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Georgetown University researcher Badar Khan Suri.
The Trump administration has targeted international students as it seeks to crack down on immigration, including ramping up immigration arrests and sharply restricting border crossings.
Rubio also said the U.S. State Department has revoked the visas of at least 300 people.
“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 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.”
‘Persecution of dissidents’
U.S. Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed Öztürk’s detention, too.
Trump, who has ramped up arrests and deportations of university students with visas or green cards, is moving toward authoritarianism, Sanders said in a post on X.
“A Turkish student at Tufts Univ. was snatched by a group of masked DHS agents. Why? She wrote an op-ed critical of Israel’s war against the Palestinian people. Together, we must stop Trump’s political persecution of dissidents,” Sanders wrote.
Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss, too, argued the decision to detain and deport Öztürk was out of order.
“Massachusetts has been welcoming students and immigrants for four centuries. The footage I saw today of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Öztürk being detained by masked officers is contrary to that tradition,” he said.
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